Star Tribune
St. Louis County approves ‘conservative’ cannabis ordinance, allowing room to adjust in the future
DULUTH – The St. Louis County Board approved its cannabis ordinance during Tuesday’s meeting at the courthouse, with regulations in place for proximity to schools, number of potential retail spots and where it cannot be used publicly.
The ordinance, which goes in effect Jan. 1, covers the areas within this vast swath of northeastern Minnesota where St. Louis County is the planning and zoning authority. According to the ordinance, no retail businesses can set up within 1,000 feet of a school or 500 feet from a licensed daycare, residential treatment facility or public park. The county must approve registrations for one retailer per 12,500 residents. This caps out at three businesses in areas where St. Louis County, rather than a city like Duluth, is the zoning authority.
Cannabis is banned in public parks and government land and any indoor spaces where smoking is banned.
Of the seven commissioners, just Ashley Grimm, whose district is in the western part of Duluth, opposed it. Among her reasons: With a limit of three retail spaces, marijuana won’t be accessible for some people, and that number benefits larger corporations rather than “smaller shops that tend to be less predatory.”
“The largest concern for me,” she said during the meeting, “is the increase in pretextual stops that this could give people — that this could be used for when people are using marijuana in really isolated places, even.”
She cited the county’s definition of “public place,” which includes nearly a million acres of tax-forfeited land.
“It includes places where you would not be a public health concern to anyone,” Grimm said. “I want to make sure that we’re not starting to criminalize behavior that’s widely popularly considered non-criminal as well as behavior that’s not detrimental to public health.”
Board chair Keith Nelson said the ordinance was purposefully conservative, with the intent of offering room to adjust in the future. He described it as a “starting point” and advised that commissioners not pick it apart at this point. Commissioners used Brad the runaway sheep who freely roamed the North Shore for weeks as a metaphor: Getting away from the farm is easy, corralling him back home was not as easy.
A woman is dead following a two-vehicle collision early Wednesday in Otter Tail County in northwestern Minnesota, the State Patrol said.
The woman, 55, of Sebeka, Minn., was headed north on Haberhan Road when she collided with a pickup truck headed east on Hwy. 10 about 2:40 a.m., the patrol said.
Her name has not been released.
Two adults and a teenager from Miles City, Mont., in the pickup truck were not injured, said patrol spokesman Lt. Michael Lee.
Road conditions were dry at the time of the crash, which happened in Pine Lake Township between Perham and New York Mills.
No other information has been released.
Finally, converting the sales tax would continue about $4 million in annual funding that is split between extended hours for Hennepin County libraries and subsidies for youth activities.
When they first proposed converting the ballpark tax last spring, the legislation got bipartisan support with lawmakers excited by the prospect of extending the Twins lease and supporting local health care needs.
But the plan also faced skepticism and couldn’t muster the support it needed, even with Democrats completely in control of state government, to become law. North Memorial was not included in the initial proposal and some DFLers had reservations about providing $10 million a year to a stadium for a sports team owned by the wealthy Pohlad family.
This year, the proposal could face different hurdles. Republicans and Democrats will share control of the House and the powerful tax committee that would have to sign off on converting the tax.
Rep. Kristin Robbins, R-Maple Grove, who hopes to continue her role on the House tax committee, noted that the DFL-led Legislature increased Hennepin County sales taxes by 1% in 2023. She agrees the county’s two safety-net hospitals need more dedicated public funding, but wants county leaders to explore other options.
But earlier this year, a farmer from Beltrami County, backed by the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, sued to block the program on the basis its eligibility requirements discriminated against the white plaintiff. In response, the Legislature changed the program’s eligibility, dropping priority for minorities and focusing, instead, on specialty crop farmers and lower-income growers.
Sen. Aric Putnam, DFL-St. Cloud, said the new language focuses on “market conditions,” but would “still, by and large, reach the same population we were trying to reach before.”
For Ellis, the journey to pigs, chickens, and homemade ketchup from his garden really began in 2011. That’s when he got sober and started buying food for his children.
“I was always wondering why I got some anxiety in the grocery store,” Ellis said. “I’d get into the store, and wonder, ‘who buys all this [stuff]?”
But when he lived off Franklin Avenue, a neighbor kept a potted garden. She gave him a fresh tomato.
“I was like, ‘Oh my God. What is this? I definitely wanted to come up with a way [to grow this].’”
