A Minnesota judge has ordered the state’s cannabis regulator to hold a lottery license for social equity applicants that the agency had previously canceled.
Last year, Ramsey County District Court Judge Stephen Smith delayed the lottery, seemingly in support of applicants who had sued the OCM after being denied a spot in the lottery. In response, the Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) elected to cancel the pre-approval lottery and move forward with a standard licensing cycle for both social equity and general applicants.
But now Smith has ruled that the OCM must conduct the social equity license lottery as originally planned.
“While social equity lottery offers no guarantees, as discussed above, cancelling the lottery effectively casts aside the significant time and investment 648 qualified applicants put into shoring up their capacity to hit the ground running as a licensee,” he wrote. “...Allowing disadvantaged groups to build their capacity early on in the licensing process would enhance their ability to operate a successful business. That advantage is lost if there is no social equity lottery.”
The OCM’s Interim Director Eric Taubel said his agency intends to seek a dismissal of the order.
“With the adoption of the rules governing Minnesota's cannabis industry imminent, OCM expects to be able to begin issuing licenses to qualified social equity applicants in a matter of weeks,” he said in a statement. “There are currently more than a thousand qualified applicants for social equity licenses who are first in line to receive business licenses, and OCM has been clear since November that any delay to the lottery would prove fatal to the preapproval process. At this stage, additional litigation and delays serve no one. OCM looks forward to continuing its work to get licenses out the door and launching the market as soon as possible.”
