First state-licensed micro cannabis dispensary reflects on one month of business
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It’s been one month since Minnesota’s first state-licensed microbusiness dispensary opened in Duluth. Legacy Cannabis began selling flower and other products on Sept. 16, more than two years after recreational cannabis was legalized in Minnesota.
Legacy Cannabis Duluth lead consultant Josh Wilken-Simon joined MPR News host Nina Moini to share how business has been going.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. Listen to the conversation by clicking the player button above.
How has the first month been?
It’s been such an incredible ride. I started doing this way back in 2009, taking my cousin’s locally made glass pipes and going hand-to-hand at music festivals and selling those. And we opened the first brick and mortar Legacy Glass Works in downtown Duluth in 2010. This has really been my life’s work, and we’ve been planning for legalization this whole time and planning for the first dispensary space. So to be the first state-licensed micro dispensary is just an honor.
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Legacy Cannabis is the first state-licensed microbusiness dispensary in Minnesota and the first to sell cannabis grown by a tribal supplier. What are some of the growing pains associated with being the first to do that?
The White Earth Nation has been an amazing partner, but of course it comes with its challenges. Most of those challenges have been regulatory in nature. White Earth is a sovereign nation within the state of Minnesota and they have their own cannabis regulatory body, the Tribal Regulatory Authority. And then the state of Minnesota has their own regulatory body, the Office of Cannabis Management. So making sure that everything is completely legal on the White Earth Reservation and with the state of Minnesota — there’s been some challenges, but this is a brand-new market and you have to expect some kind of initial growing pains.
What are your customers saying?
We’ve had some long lines, especially those first couple weeks, lines out the door. It turns out, Minnesotans have been waiting to go into a dispensary and buy safe, tested, regulated cannabis products. The Duluth community has always been so supportive of everything we’ve done. Fifteen years ago, we were just a tiny shop selling locally made pipes. The excitement is there and it’s just so great to see how many people come in and have been waiting their entire lives to be able to shop and buy legal cannabis products.
Has it been easy to keep up with that demand?
No it’s been a challenge. We’ve been fortunate that since the day we opened the doors, we’ve been able to keep actual cannabis flower in stock. But other products, we’ve been running out and it’s taken a little bit to get more in stock. This market is at its infancy. Right now, we’re legally able to buy from one group. Your average customer isn’t super in tune with the state of the marketplace, so they’ve been waiting two years for dispensaries to open and often think when they open, there’s going to be all these different products. We’re just not there yet.
The good news is that every day that goes on, we’re getting close to other tribes signing that state compact, which allows them to sell into the Minnesota marketplace. And we have a bunch of small Minnesota micro-businesses that got some of those first cultivation licenses and were able to plant their outdoor crops this summer. A lot of them are in the middle of harvesting right now.
You’re about to open the next Legacy Cannabis dispensary in Woodbury, and then a location in Minneapolis. Tell me more about that.
I own two existing stores. One is Legacy Glass Works in the LynLake area of Minneapolis, which is a glass pipe gallery. We are almost finished with a build-out of a Legacy Cannabis dispensary directly right next door to Legacy Glass Works. Those two will just be able to pair with each other very seamlessly.
The next dispensary that will open will be Legacy Cannabis in Woodbury. We currently are open there, selling locally made pipes and the lower potency hemp edibles. We’re just waiting on the final inspection from the Office of Cannabis Management to be able to get the actual cannabis flower and pre-roll products. That should be in the next couple weeks. A lot of people from the Twin Cities have actually been making the trip all the way up to Duluth to shop, so they’ll be able to stay a little closer to home.
