Growing Problems? Minnesota Cities Grapple With New Marijuana Laws

Last night, I attended my local city council meeting. During that meeting, where they set the 2024 tax levy, the city attorney and members of the council discussed a cannabis ordinance. The discussion wrapped around where the city would allow marijuana businesses to 'sprout' up, and the problem with that is that there are 13 different types of businesses associated with the new industry.

Leaving that meeting, my head spinning and buzzing as if I had just stepped off Willie Nelson's tour bus, but the council had given the city attorney some direction for an upcoming ordinance reading at their next meeting.

The council in St. Augusta, which still has to finalize the ordinance, which includes a reading at a future council meeting, settled on initially allowing medicinal marijuana businesses to exist in the city's industrial or commercially zoned areas.

There was also conversation over whether or not the City of St. Augusta will work with Stearns County on business registration for medicinal marijuana businesses. This would allow the county to handle a majority of the work for registering the business, whereas a city like St. Augusta doesn't always have the staff size to help process the registrations.

What was clear when the meeting was over is that Minnesota as a state has A LOT more work to do on the roll-out of recreational marijuana sales. Currently, there still isn't someone 'permanently' in place to run the new state agency that will oversee the licensees, and there is currently a court case that has to deal with the upcoming license lottery. (Which is likely to delay the roll-out of the sales portion of the marijuana program)

St. Augusta's City Attorney made it clear that the council would be working on this ordinance for the next couple of years as the state dials in its approach to legalizing marijuana.

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If you get a moment in the next few weeks, take a moment to thank your local township board, county board, city council, etc for having to deal with this rollout, and all the headaches associated with it, so far. The decisions they have to make without much information are tough, but needed, and hopefully, city councils like St. Augusta will have the guidance they are looking for from the state sooner rather than later.