Minnesota has issued the state’s first recreational marijuana license to a microbusiness, Herb Quest, which will start by growing cannabis plants outdoors.
“Issuing the first business license is a major milestone for the office,” Eric Taubel, the interim director of the state’s Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), said in a Wednesday statement.
“With our first licensed cultivator now able to begin growing plants and more than 600 businesses within the final steps of completing their applications and securing approvals from local governments, we are now seeing the first pieces of Minnesota’s adult-use market fall into place.”
Herb Quest is located in Brook Park, more than 70 miles north of Minneapolis.
Minnesota regulators recently announced 249 winners of adult-use business permits through a lottery.
Those 249 still must pass a criminal background check and secure a labor peace agreement to receive preliminary approval for a license.
Changes to Minnesota’s recreational marijuana law “expanded the list of qualifying criteria for social equity status to include applicants who have received stays of adjudication and adjudications of delinquency,” according to an OCM news release.
The OCM will review applications whose social equity status was previously denied and notify applicants whose status is verified under the revised standards.
The agency also said it will give applicants who want to have their social equity status verified another opportunity to do so from 12:01 a.m. CT July 7 until 11:59 p.m. July 21.
The OCM also set its next key date, Aug. 1, when:
- The application window opens for cannabis testing facilities.
- The agency will begin accepting applications for cannabis event-organizer licenses. Cannabis events, limited to people 21 and older, can feature the on-site sale and use of adult-use products, lower-potency hemp edibles and hemp-derived products. The sale or consumption of alcohol is prohibited at such events.
