Who is fighting to get into Minnesota's budding cannabis industry

MINNEAPOLIS — New numbers from Minnesota's Office of Cannabis Management show who is fighting to get into the budding industry.

More than 1,800 applications have been filed for a lottery to win business license pre-approvals .

They'll become licenses once the infrastructure for the system is set up.

Angela Dawson, the CEO of Bold North, says her application for the lottery later this year was 50 pages long and required a lot of time and consultation.

"I'm relieved to be done with the confusion," she said.

Dawson is one of nearly 600 applicants in the "microbusiness" category competing for just 100 pre-licenses.

Taking all the categories together, such as cannabis retailer, wholesaler or delivery service, less than half of the 1,817 applicants live in Minnesota.

"It really does make me concerned for that Minnesota craft industry we've been so strongly trying to create here," Dawson said.

Josh Collins with the OCM says Minnesota statutes don't have a residency requirement and restricting to out-of-staters could have raised legal challenges.

For Dawson though, it raises the specter of large out-of-state corporations snapping up licenses she feels should be going to local entrepreneurs like her.

The OCM says limiting this first round of applicants to those who met social equity criteria "likely" filtered out companies like that.

"We're going to be going down to the individual level looking at ownership," Collins said. "That's to make sure there aren't any large corporations that might be trying to sneak in."

Dawson is now working to launch her business while also dealing with existential uncertainty.

"I don't want to invest too much because I don't know if I'm going to have the license or not," she said.

Dawson says Bold North intends to be a cultivator growing marijuana as well as a retailer.