Our Take: Rochester and Olmsted Co. are right to enter the pot market cautiously – Post Bulletin

If you’ve visited Denver in the past few years, chances are you’ve seen a cannabis dispensary. (And yes, you’ve probably smelled some weed smoke.) Colorado was at the forefront of the marijuana legalization movement, and Denver has the most dispensaries per capita of any major U.S. city, with 10.4 per 100,000 residents.

To simplify the calculation: the most cannabis-friendly major city in our country has approximately one cannabis dispensary per 10,000 inhabitants.

With that number in mind, we see no reason why Rochester and/or Olmsted County should welcome more than the required number of licensed cannabis businesses into the state as Minnesota prepares to fully authorize and regulate the sale of recreational marijuana.

If you’ve been following the legislative and regulatory processes over the past few years, you know that the legalization of recreational marijuana has been bumpy and complex—murky, even, we might say—but here’s where we stand. Sometime next year, state law will require the availability of 150 retail licenses and at least one cannabis business location per 12,500 residents. Based on the state’s current population, that translates to a minimum of 381 such storefronts statewide.

It’s not quite Denver, but it’s pretty close.

Olmsted County must open at least 14 such businesses, with Rochester allowing at least 10. That’s no guarantee, however, that 10 dispensaries will open next year, or in the next 20 years.

The free market, not government regulators, will determine how many licensed dispensaries open and thrive (or simply survive) in a given area. If no entrepreneur wants to open a marijuana shop in Rochester—or in Byron or Stewartville—then there won’t be any. Rochester is required to allow at least 10 dispensaries, but there is no state mandate requiring a city or county to attract or establish such businesses.

Cities and counties cannot ban cannabis dispensaries, nor can they create new zoning laws that make it virtually impossible to establish new dispensaries, although they can set minimum distances to schools, parks, etc. and identify locations where dispensaries are permitted, as Rochester has done. The state of Minnesota will receive permit applications and issue permits to potential dispensary owners/operators. If and when the state minimum of 381 permits is claimed, regulators may choose to make more permits available, if such demand exists.

Now let’s go back to Rochester and Olmsted County.

The County Board, City Council, and Mayor Kim Norton have all indicated that they want to proceed with caution. While Rochester could theoretically “claim” all 14 licensed businesses that Olmsted County is required to allow—and could even welcome more than 14 licensed dispensaries if the city so chooses—we see no reason to open the floodgates any further than the required 10. And we absolutely do not want the city to hire more staff to regulate these businesses, as it would have to do if there were more than 14 dispensaries operating in Rochester.

What’s the potential downside to limiting the number of licensed dispensaries? Well, if the goal is to encourage a diversity of cannabis business models, spread somewhat evenly across the city and county, then perhaps more licenses would be better. For example, if only a handful of dispensaries open in Olmsted County, and none in South Rochester or Stewartville, that could create an environment in which an illegal, unregulated market can flourish.

That problem could also arise, however, if Olmsted County were to allow 20 dispensaries. Neither the city nor the county can force someone to locate a business in a certain place. Dispensaries are placed in legal locations where their owners believe they will have the best visibility, the most traffic, good security, and the greatest chance of success.

But there’s a lot of gambling going on. No one really knows what’s going to happen when the first non-tribal dispensaries open their doors in southeastern Minnesota. Will thousands of people who’ve never smoked marijuana line up to try it? Will people who currently use CBD edibles switch to smoking THC-containing marijuana products? Will “street” marijuana become unavailable, or will it become cheaper? Will people from neighboring states flock across the Minnesota border to buy weed?

And if demand for recreational marijuana proves to be high, are we prepared to address the potential downsides of its popularity? THC products are already creating hazards on our roads, with the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office reporting an eight-fold increase in drug-impaired driving arrests in the first six months of 2024 compared to 2023. If trends in other states continue here, Minnesota could see more serious injuries and traffic fatalities once marijuana becomes widely available in the state.

That likelihood alone is reason enough to pull the plug on the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries in our region. Or, to put it in terms that would resonate in Denver: It’s better to keep a tight rein on a young horse than to let it run wild when a rider first climbs into the saddle.