(FOX 9) – Marijuana millionaires are coming soon to Minnesota.
Marijuana millionaires molded
Lottery winners:
A total of 249 people won the cannabis licensing lottery on Thursday, putting them firmly on the road to opening a business cashing in a lot of green.
“Good morning and welcome to the Office of Cannabis Management’s license lottery,” said OCM interim director Eric Taubel as the moment of truth arrived Thursday for 776 dreamers.
Only about one-third of them could win licenses for cannabis cultivation, manufacture, mezzobusiness, and retail.
So, Nick Rahn was rocking with anxiety by the time the retail numbers started popping up.
And then it hit.
“Yes!” he screamed. Two years of work paid off. “I just can’t believe this is real.”
Empires enlivened
Who won?:
Most of Thursday’s winners were social equity applicants — veterans, people in poor neighborhoods, and people who were charged under previous marijuana laws.
Rahn is a veteran who puts a portion of his proceeds from the Warrior’s Garden THC store towards his Warriors Next Adventure non-profit helping vets who suffer from PTSD.
“We’ve stopped 140 suicides so far, and we plan on keeping that number going up,” Rahn told Fox 9.
He’s now well on his way to growing a five-store cannabis empire, starting in St. Paul to help the charity climb.
“If they’ve already got a site, if they’ve been working with their local government, they could move through these steps fairly quickly,” Taubel said. “You know it could take a couple of weeks to a month.”
Cannabis competition
The race is on:
Thursday’s lottery winners join almost 400 microbusinesses in the race to open.
They need to have a business plan, a security plan, zoning approval, and an inspection by the Office of Cannabis Management, which is adding more inspectors to speed things up.
“My goal is August 1,” Rahn said. “That’s probably biting off a little more than I can chew, but I want to get it on the shelves as soon as possible.”
But a total of 527 people also lost in the lottery on Thursday, which Rahn said, for him, probably would’ve meant bankruptcy.
“So that’s obviously been a huge fear for us for the last year,” he said. “And now we can breathe a little bit.”
Lottery losers
There’s a chance?:
But this lottery’s losers could potentially still turn it into a win.
They could choose to open smaller microbusinesses — single-store retail or small-scale manufacture or cultivation — where there’s no limit to the number of licenses.
What’s next:
Another retail lottery will be held on July 22.
Minnesota’s first cannabis license lottery on Thursday gave 249 people a path to selling legal recreational marijuana. Read More
