CROOKSTON, Minnesota — At a former mobile phone store within the Canna Corners facility on Main Street, customers got here and went on a recent summer afternoon — a young man in sandals and a backpack, a retiree in a veteran's cap.
“My wife takes half a gummy bear every day before she goes to bed. It helps her sleep,” said Mike Lafrance, who noted that his wife suffers from autoimmune complications. “For me? I drink Miller.”
It was a rocky road for longtime radio DJ John Reitmeier and his partner Casey Hammer to get their business Canna Corners recognized in northwest Minnesota.
“The council here (in Crookston) is now positive to neutral,” said Reitmeier, sitting behind a laptop in his Crookston shop. “But there were people who accused me of being the incarnation of Satan.”
Reitmeier, whose rapid-fire voice has been heard on North American airwaves for a long time, is susceptible to flowery speeches. In late July, he sat beneath competing posters — a Hiroshige print of crashing waves and a Minnesota cannabis company, Moonlight — and recalled that the early days just two summers ago, when he opened his shop a block away from a bustling industrial district and a stone's throw from the winding Red Lake River, were anything but cute.
At public meetings, some people suggested that his business was responsible for teenagers bringing THC vaporizers to highschool. Others said he was selling illegal products. Then the day got here when the police got here – officers he knew from church.
“They surrounded me and asked for my ID,” said Reitmeier. “We've known each other for 40 years.”
This interaction is typical of the dismay that exists in some Minnesota communities, where persons are significantly less willing than their urban counterparts to welcome cannabis-themed businesses.
State-licensed THC products averaged $12 million in monthly sales this yr, in line with tax revenue records from the IRS. About half of the 4,000 Minnesota businesses registered to fabricate or sell hemp-based THC products are situated outside the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area.
But quite a few municipalities and counties, including many outside the metropolitan region, pressed pause by issuing moratoriums on business start-ups.
That's exactly what happened in Crookston, not long after Reitmeier and Hammer opened their store with the green inflatable hydroponic leaf within the window. Crookston, in addition to neighboring cities within the Red River Valley, including Polk County, enacted cannabis moratoriums.
Polk County Clerk Chuck Whiting said the county wanted clarification from lawmakers on the state's latest cannabis law, which shall be passed in spring 2023. The law legalizes marijuana for recreational use and opens a Pandora's box of issues, Whiting said, from business licensing to public health and safety concerns. So the county took motion.
“We see this as a ship that's setting sail, and we're still building it,” said Brian Holmer, mayor of Thief River Falls, whose city has enacted a moratorium on cannabis businesses through the tip of the yr. “The legislature should have set everything in stone before putting it on us.”
Sugar beet + THC
For Canna Corners, expansion is on hold. Before the moratoriums were passed, Reitmeier and Hammer grew quickly, opening stores in East Grand Forks and Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Even after local governments waved the caution flag, more customers continued to return from those small towns.
Some acquaintances said they might come by if their small-town store only had a back entrance.
That's why Reitmeier and Hammer have developed a brand new product to sit down on shelves alongside the Northwood-themed edibles and medicinal tinctures: Bud's, a lemonade that mixes THC with the region's sugar beets.
On a recent summer day, pallets of red Coke cans sat within the corner of the shop, next to a sleeping dog. On one wall was a poster of the confident-looking green bear in a scarlet top hat, the mascot of the 21-and-over drink.
In some ways, it’s an agricultural inevitability – the mix of hemp-derived THC with sugar beets, the Red River Valley’s most significant crop.
At one end of Crookston is a museum dedicated to the brown, potato-like root. At the opposite end is an American Crystal Sugar factory that processes sugar beets harvested from farmers' fields into sugar machines.
Hammer emphasizes that Bud's uses Minnesota-grown sugar and never “HFC,” or high fructose corn syrup.
The alcohol-infused lemonade, just like Red Bull, is on the market in 230 ml cans and has either the flavour of cola or fruit punch.
“We know people are watching their calories,” Reitmeier said. “They can drink this and drink a Diet Coke.”
His business partner noted that there’s a larger marketplace for it, too. In addition to the three Canna Corners stores, the drink can also be available at a supermarket in Thief River Falls and liquor stores in Warroad and St. Hilaire, Minnesota.
“Sales have been increasing organically every month,” Hammer said. “The stigma is fading.”
A somewhat normal future
More than a yr after a moratorium was issued in the big county that props up North Dakota, Whiting, the Polk County executive, sees oil on supermarket shelves across the realm. And, he notes, the world has not fallen apart.
“It's not a major concern for us at the moment,” Whiting said. “No pun intended.”
Yet, very like the cartoon cigarette mascots of a generation ago, there are major concerns that cannabis products – with sophisticated promoting and colourful labels – could find yourself within the hands of kids or contribute to illegal activities amongst young adults.
Reitmeier contradicts this claim based on his customer profile.
“Did you see who came in here?” said Reitmeier. “Our people are at home in bed and sleeping at nine o'clock.”
Reitmeier's roots are within the valley's sugar beet farmers. And hemp, processed at a facility in Morgan, Minnesota, was grown on his clan's farm. Hemp was effectively legalized by the 2018 federal Farm Bill.
“It's only logical that we're now entering this new industry,” Reitmeier said. “And the only sad thing is that my father and grandparents can't see what we're doing now because we're continuing something they started.”
Then one other customer got here into the shop and explained that he was just running an errand for his wife.
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