Lottery will decide which aspiring Minnesota cannabis businesses will be preapproved for a license

Hundreds of cannabis business applicants in Minnesota will find out on Tuesday whether they will be preapproved for a license through a state-run lottery as part of a social equity program.

The Minnesota Office of Cannabis Management’s (OCM) social equity licenses are intended to help people negatively affected in the past by cannabis prohibition, veterans and people who live in high-poverty areas and compete with better-funded entrepreneurs to enter the state’s fledgling adult-use marijuana market. Getting preapproval moves applicants closer to receiving a license.

The OCM announced on Friday that the lottery for 648 applicants will take place at 11 a.m. on Tuesday. It will be streamed online on the OCM’s YouTube page.

Out of those 648 social equity applicants, a total of 182 preapprovals will be awarded through the lottery on Tuesday. Another 18 preapprovals will be awarded by default on Tuesday, separate from the lottery process.

The announcement comes after the OCM dramatically reduced the first pool of contenders this week, and sent rejection letters to 1,169 applicants, leaving 648 remaining. The rejection notices led to disbelief and anger from some of the Minnesota applicants, and one cannabis attorney said it was minor clerical errors that caused applications she reviewed to get rejected.

An additional lottery will take place in early 2025 for another shot at social equity licensing, as well as a general licensing lottery for other applicants, a spokesman for the OCM said.

Matt Delong contributed to this story.