We all know the adage “time is money”. In the case of business, time is literally money. And, in the case of Minnesota cannabis businesses, time is life. Today, OCM held lotteries for most of the categories that required them. They didn’t appear to finish Retailer license applications on time and pushed that lottery to late July – a move that must have infuriated many. With the lottery, and other applications that have moved forward aside from the lottery, many businesses got to breathe a sigh of relief as they move onto the next steps of licensing. Many others learned that they were on the outside looking in. The business I operate, Aurora Cannabis, is still lost in the middle – a victim of pure ghosting.
I’ve detailed how difficult OCM’s task is to process this many applications this quickly with what I assume is a small team. I am sympathetic to the challenges of this type of project as I’ve been part of many similar projects of overwhelming scale. OCM had their hands full and I’m acknowledging that part. However, now the state is creating significant advantages for businesses with an answer compared with those who haven’t heard back. A “yes” would be great, a “no” would really suck, but a “maybe, sorry, we don’t know when or if or what but we’ll get back to you as soon as we know” is unacceptable. Don’t forget: time is life.
You can imagine the difference in value between a cannabis business that has been approved to move forward with licensing and one that has not (yet) been approved. It’s life and death; one is worth something and the other is worth effectively nothing because it’s just an idea. You can also imagine from the same standpoint how businesses operate with and without that sort of future assurance. They either grind to a standstill or bust their butts as quickly as possible to get to the licensed recreational market. Why are some businesses getting the massive time advantage to get to speed ahead while over 500, about half of, microbusinesses are still waiting on a reply? And how long is that advantage reasonable before those businesses are legally infringed?
This struggle is compounded by the fact that OCM does not communicate in any way with applicants. There is no way to write to them other than the catch-all info inbox. My attempts to ask for an update to that inbox have not received a reply at all. OCM has no listed phone number so there is no way to call them or speak with a person there. The website that’s used to manage applications does not provide any information about the status. There is absolutely no way for applicants to follow up despite having sent hundreds or thousands of dollars on an application fee. Making this as clear as possible: they took almost $7,000,000 in application fees and do not reply to applicants about the status of their application over 10 weeks after it was submitted.
You could say “Who cares? They’re doing what they have to do to roll out businesses as quickly as they can.” My guess is that’s exactly what OCM is saying in their roadmap meetings. Well, I care. You can’t use a position of legal regulatory authority to give advantages to businesses of your choosing. If I had a friend at OCM and I asked for my application to get reviewed before others, you’d definitely think that was an infringement on others. By responding to some applicants and not others, how can we say that hasn’t happened?
I’m not accusing anybody of anything but regulatory processes, especially in the private sector, are not places to induce bias. Whether or not it intended, the state has induced significant bias in a way that negatively harms our business and hundreds of others. This damage is increasingly harmful with every hour that passes as we sit idle instead of powering forward. Is it too much to ask to simply have a fair, equal chance to compete? I’m hoping the state moves quickly to resolve the state of this rollout and I’ll do my best to keep you updated.