Minnesota officials this week denied about 1,200 cannabis social equity applicants, two-thirds of those who applied, for issues ranging from inadequate paperwork to “flooding” the application pool in an attempt to improve the odds of receiving a license.
Two-Thirds of Minnesota Social Equity License Applications Denied
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Two-thirds of Minnesota social equity cannabis license applicants were denied for inadequate documentation with the state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) claiming that a lot of the rejected applicants are “zone flooders or predatory applicants or who do not meet the letter of the law around ownership requirements and expectations,” according to a MinnPost report.
The denials affect about 1,200 of the 1,817 social equity applications. OCM had previously verified 2,307 individuals as social equity-qualified applicants, mostly military veterans and people with previous cannabis-related convictions. About 640 of the applicants will be included in the license lottery, which is scheduled for the week of December 2.
Charlene Briner, the interim director of the Office of Cannabis Management, told MinnPost that the state “gave the answers to the test ahead of time” by detailing license requirements and issuing how-to guides.
“While the disappointment is understandable, the basic proxy for readiness is your ability to submit a successful application. … We’ve always known this is a highly complex regulated space, and we heard concerns about readiness so the people who get into the lottery are qualified.” — Briner to MinnPost
Briner added that officials “want to make sure the right universe of fully qualified and vetted applicants are in the mix,” and that applicants included in the lottery will be notified by the agency.
Attorney Jen Randolph Reise, who represents some of the rejected applicants, told MinnPost that the denials are “a significant misstep by OCM” and that the agency should “allow denials made in error to be challenged and reversed” despite state law prohibiting appeals of decisions to deny access to the pre-approval lottery.
The state did not receive enough qualified applications for cannabis wholesaler, cannabis transporter, and cannabis testing facility licenses to trigger a lottery and received the most applications for cultivation, manufacturer, and retail licenses.
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