Minnesota tribes may soon create cannabis businesses off reservations

(FOX 9) - Minnesota marijuana businesses are in the home stretch and hoping to win licenses allowing them to open next year. But they may already have some established competition by the time they get going.

Businesses prepare for cannabis licensing

Crested River is a successful Morgan, Minn., hemp business, but owner Shawn Weber has his eyes on a natural next move.

"I don't have to go to marijuana," Weber said. "I would like to go to marijuana."

But as he prepares to expand into the marijuana business, his greenhouse is still empty. But some of his would-be competitors could potentially very soon start growing in any of the neighboring fields. 

Tribal cannabis competition

"If and when we get a license, yeah, we'll be natural competitors," Weber said.

Crested River is just a few miles from the soon-to-open Off The Path dispensary on the Lower Sioux Reservation.

But the competition could come even closer.

Tribes going off reservation?

The governor’s staff confirms they’re negotiating with all but one of the tribes in Minnesota to allow cannabis businesses off reservations.

"Everybody is kind of getting prepped and saying, 'Hey, when we when we get it, can we get it? Are we going to get it right?'," said Zach Wilson, who runs Waabigwan Mashkiki, the White Earth Nation cannabis operation. "We're kind of taking that approach that we feel very confident with the state that at some point we are going to get, you know, some sort of off reservation dispensary license."

Wilson's operation grows, manufactures, and retails marijuana on tribal land in Mahnomen, and they expect to have to follow the same rules as other Minnesota cannabis businesses when they operate off reservation.

They’ve already bought an old JL Beers burger restaurant in Moorhead and started converting it for cannabis retail.

What's the timeline?

They’re hoping for a head start on competition, but Wilson doesn’t think they’ll crowd anyone out before the state starts licensing.

"Really, there's a lot of synergies because there are going to be a lot of social equity licenses that are going to have grows," Wilson said. "They're going to have brands. Well, they need somewhere to put their product, right?"

He’s not worried about competition destroying the Mahnomen business either, partly because tribal laws will allow them to sell some items on reservation that the state won’t allow off it.

They’re hoping for compacts with the state by the end of the year.

Weber says if they all play by the same rules, the market should work itself out.

Competitors will find out next year if there’s enough room for them or if the market might get oversaturated as it has in some other states.

"There is certainly a tipping point," Weber said. "And it does concern me with what some of these tribes are planning on doing."

The Minnesota licensing timeline isn’t firm, but the first license lottery is likely to happen late this year and the first retail licenses are expected by March.