Star Tribune
Want to open a cannabis business in Minnesota? You might need some luck.
Minnesotans who want to open a cannabis business when the state’s recreational marijuana market launches next year might need luck on their side.
State legislators are advancing a bill to change how cannabis business licenses will be awarded. Instead of using a points system to score applications, Minnesota would enter qualified applicants into a random lottery to decide who gets business licenses.
The change is backed by the state’s Office of Cannabis Management, which will oversee the licensing process. Regulators from the office are worried the existing points-based system in Minnesota’s law could invite lawsuits and accusations of subjective scoring.
“Subjective merit points-based systems have encountered some challenges and have not been particularly successful in yielding … equitable outcomes,” said Charlene Briner, interim director of the Office of Cannabis Management. “In order to do this in a way that we’re going to be able to launch in a timely manner and not encounter the kind of injunctive delays that have plagued other states, this is where we landed.”
The points system currently in statute would have applicants scored based on several factors, from their business plan and labor practices to knowledge and experience. Military veterans and those who are considered social equity applicants — people harmed by previous criminal enforcement of marijuana laws — would get extra points toward winning a license.
Under the lottery proposal, there would be separate lotteries for social equity applicants and everyone else, Briner said. Applicants would still be vetted, having to show detailed plans for their business before being entered into the lottery.
The lottery idea has gotten an icy reception from some Minnesotans who’ve been preparing for a merit-based application process. At a recent House committee hearing, several testifiers pushed back on the proposal and asked lawmakers to stick with the points system.
“I’m here to speak against the lottery because it does a major disservice to our community. There’s no social equity component to it. It is more of an invisible hand picking winners and losers,” said Tomme Beevas, founder of Pimento Jamaican Kitchen, who plans to seek a retail cannabis license.
Regulators at the Office of Cannabis Management counter that the scoring system could end up favoring large companies that can hire attorneys and consultants to help them develop a competitive application.
Scoring systems in other states have been subject to litigation, delaying the licensing process. In Illinois, unsuccessful applicants claimed unfairness after identical applications were scored differently. A consultant scoring the applications in Illinois gave more perfect scores to wealthy white men than to Black and Latino applicants who were supposed to be given a social equity advantage. State officials ordered the applications to be rescored and instituted lotteries.
But lottery systems have also been litigated and prone to gamesmanship. In Arizona, some applicants for cannabis business licenses sued the state alleging it hadn’t fully vetted 1,500 applicants in its lottery. Connecticut found that some winning applicants had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to flood the state’s lottery with entries.
“Lottery systems are uniquely vulnerable to this kind of gamesmanship because you’re leaving it up to random chance instead of expert opinion,” said Nathan Young, cannabis policy lead for the Minnesota Black Chamber of Commerce. “When you leave it to a lottery, none of that kind of discretion is there. They’re not even really looking at the business plan. They’re looking at, basically, do they meet this standard or not?”
Young said that many aspiring cannabis entrepreneurs in Minnesota, who’ve been preparing business plans and raising capital, were shocked by the proposed pivot to a lottery — including himself. He quit his full-time marketing job in December to dedicate his time to preparing a strong retail cannabis license application.
“That is not a unique thing. There are dozens of entrepreneurs that I know personally who [did this],” Young said. “They did that on the promise that it would be a merit-based system.”
Briner said critics of the proposed lottery have raised fair points. But she noted the bill at the Legislature includes some safeguards against sudden ownership changes and fraudulent application practices. The Office of Cannabis Management is willing to work with legislators to add more protections, she said.
State Rep. Zack Stephenson, DFL-Coon Rapids, is sponsoring the cannabis office’s bill in the House. He doesn’t believe the change to a lottery would be as big as some people think, since there is language in the existing law that would trigger a lottery if there aren’t enough licenses for applicants who’ve received identical scores.
Stephenson said he isn’t opposed to the lottery system but also is “not in love with it.” He said he doesn’t think there is a “litigation-proof system.” And he questioned if the proposed lottery could use stricter entry criteria: “I would say there are fewer boxes to check than there are things in the points [system].”
He encouraged the cannabis office to work with community members on a compromise.
“I’m hopeful that in doing so, we can find some middle ground that there’s broad consensus among stakeholders on,” Stephenson said.
“People stopped paying rent because they didn’t have to, and you couldn’t evict them for it, and it’s just became a free for all where people didn’t respect the place where they were staying or living anymore, and the management couldn’t hold people accountable,” Faust said.
The turning point came when the city, Aeon and tenant advocacy groups like the Village BP started collaborating in earnest, issuing weekly memos to communicate what actions they were taking to claw back control of Huntington Place. Aeon hired an armed patrol, installed security cameras and erected a fence to restrict movement in and out of its parking lot, spending $1.353 million annually from 2021 to 2024. The police raided the units of drug dealers and Aeon jettisoned them as the moratorium eased. City staff door-knocked floor by floor, issuing repair orders for discharged fire extinguishers that were never replaced, unpatched holes in the wall, mold, water damage, mice and roaches. Repairs improved the look and feel of the complex. The addition of sidewalks helped residents walk to the bus stop, and speed bumps broke up the roadway near the front checkpoint area that had been nicknamed the “racetrack.”
Crime stats paint the picture of a massive ship yawing straight. Between 2022 and 2023, there was a 56.6% plunge in violent crime. The trend continues downward.
Longtime resident Ernie Jackson said he and his wife Kim used to only leave their apartment to let their dog out because, “You know, who wants to be involved in the chaos and craziness?” But since security was restored, he’s spent a significant amount of time this summer soaking up the sun in his lawn chair.
Aeon has informed them that residents need not worry about displacement because affordable housing covenants will follow the property through January 2050. The Jacksons are heartened by that. Still, Kim wonders whether the new owner will maintain the social support services that Aeon worked with city and community partners to offer — the school supply giveaways, the health resource fairs and vaccine outreach, pizza nights with police, and the teen outings to Dunwoody College.
Not much is known about MAS Capital locally. It doesn’t own any other affordable housing projects in the Twin Cities region, and the firm did not respond to questions from the Star Tribune about its long-term intentions.
Star Tribune
Twin Cities man gets 5 years in prison for romance scheme that raked in more than $2M million
A Brooklyn Park man received more than five years in prison Tuesday for perpetrating with others a nationwide romance fraud scheme for four years and pulling in more than $2.1 million.
Dodzi K. Kordorwu, 38, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to a 5¼-year term after pleading guilty to the online ruse that targeted dozens of primarily older people.
Judge Eric Tostrud also ordered Kordorwu to be under court supervision for three years after his release and to make full restitution of the money he stole.
The FBI says about 24,000 victims in the United States reported losing about $1 billion to romance scams in 2021. Researchers say romance scammers prey specifically on seniors, some capitalizing on the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic to find lonely victims.
Ahead of sentencing, prosecutors argued in a court filing for Kordowu to be given a sentence of nearly seven years in prison.
While taking on the persona of “Dr. Carmen Williams” to interact with one victim, Kordowu “directly expressed his love [and] promised to never leave them,” the prosecution filing read.
Upon receiving a monetary shipment, Kordorwu followed up with “‘thank you so much my sweet and beautiful wife. I love you, and I will always love you,’” the filing continued. “The deeply personal connections forged by these overtures is what made the fraud scheme so potent.”
The defense proposed in writing to the court for a sentence of probation, contended that he had a limited role in the scam, the crime was nonviolent in nature, and “Mr. Kordorwu is the sole person being held responsible for the offense.”
The Brooklyn Park City Council has extended its censure of Council Member Boyd Morson in response to claims that he continues to disrespect staff and display inappropriate behavior online.
The council at its meeting last week declined to remove the censure, Morson’s second in the past couple years, which was put in place this spring after a staff member filed a complaint. Fellow council members say Morson, who is seeking reelection on Nov. 5, violated city code, citing concerns that he has posted disparaging messages on social media criticizing the city manager and council members, including calling a fellow member “corrupt.”
In next month’s election, Morson faces a challenge from Amanda Cheng Xiong to represent the city’s eastern district.
Morson isn’t the only Brooklyn Park council member under censure, a usually rare, official reprimand by a governing body. Earlier this year, the council censured Council Member Maria Tran for violating the code of conduct. And last week, council members said they want Tran to receive a mental health evaluation, claiming she had made several concerning comments, including that city leaders were plotting to have her killed and expressing an interest in bringing a gun to meetings.
That means one-third of the six-member council is now censured.
Morson did not immediately return a call for comment Tuesday.
When the council censured Morson this past spring, members agreed to evaluate the decision every three months and determine whether to remove the action. But last week, the council agreed Morson had failed to follow the conditions imposed, which include having no communication with staff other than the city manager and economic development director.
