After weeks of public commentary, town hall meetings, and conversation among the commissioners, at the Aug. 27 meeting the Cook County Board of Commissioners opted to adjust the number of licenses allowed in the proposed cannabis business ordinance.
The original draft of the ordinance would have allowed for the county to issue 14 licenses, spread out evenly across seven geographical areas of the county. County Attorney Molly Hicken explained that this was designed to parallel the way that licenses for liquor sales are issued. She added that including two businesses per area would allow for several types of businesses that all fall under the retail umbrella.
At the most recent meeting, however, the commissioners decided that starting with fewer licenses would allow the county to maintain more control of the cannabis sales in the county. They reduced the number of licenses allowed in the ordinance to seven, one per geographical region. Because the commissioners opted to make a substantive chance to the ordinance, an additional public hearing will be held on Sep. 24. County Administrator James Joerke told WTIP that he expects the commissioners to vote to enact the ordinance after that hearing.
During the Aug. 27 meeting the commissioners also expressed concern about the chance that business owners from outside Minnesota might end up acquiring the licenses available for the area.
The state Office of Cannabis Management (OCM) has released early data on where applications for licensing pre-approval have come from, and it showed a high number of applicants from out-of-state. In speaking with WTIP, Joerke said, "We are hoping that we do have local business owners who are able to establish themselves as retailers in this space, but we really don't have any say as a county on who gets those licenses."
Read more at: wtip.org