MANKATO — For Mankato marijuana lovers, Wednesday will be like Christmas morning with a celebratory grand opening of the community’s first adult-use recreational cannabis retail store.
And high noon will actually arrive three hours earlier than that. Sales are to begin at 9 a.m. at the RISE Dispensaries location on Sioux Road after an hour of anticipatory music and festivities.
The grand opening announcement by Green Thumb Industries Inc., the owner of RISE Dispensaries, wasn’t the only positive news Tuesday for folks hoping for a robust Mankato pot market.
A second local retailer has received its state license — one of four in addition to RISE that are in the process of making Mankato home.
“We recently registered our first cannabis retailer,” City Manager Susan Arntz told The Free Press.
That store will be just 700 feet south of RISE in a location that was once home to Mattress Firm.
The Mankato City Council decided to limit the number of local adult-use retailers to four, which is the lowest number the state law allows based on Mankato’s population. Because RISE is an existing medical cannabis provider, however, the city is not allowed to count it as one of the four, Arntz said.
So the city will have at least five. And that number could grow if Native American communities decide to open shops locally. Under compacts signed this year by Gov. Tim Walz and leaders of the White Earth Nation and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, which already operate recreational cannabis stores on tribal lands, they would be able to regulate and sell cannabis elsewhere as well. And those stores, like existing medical marijuana dispensaries, can not be counted among the minimum number local governments are required to allow.
Whatever number eventually set up shop in Mankato, RISE will be the pioneer — using its head-start to its advantage. The company opened its Mankato location in 2022, eight years after the state legalized cannabis for the treatment of certain illnesses and conditions including cancer, ALS, PTSD, autism and more. To access the products under that law, customers needed to talk their doctor about whether they qualified and then register with the state.
Access was broadly expanded in the spring of 2023 when lawmakers and Walz agreed to legalize cannabis for recreational use for anyone 21 years of age and older. But regulatory red tape delayed the licensing of retail shops for more than two years, and the first non-tribal stores just opened their doors Tuesday in Duluth and the metro area.
Chicago-based RISE — using the advantages that come with already-established Minnesota stores and an existing manufacturing facility in Cottage Grove — is only a day behind those stores.
“RISE Dispensaries will celebrate the launch of adult-use sales at its Minnesota locations with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 8 a.m. before doors open at 9 a.m., followed by music, treats and special giveaways,” the company announced. “Profits from the first day of adult-use sales at each dispensary will be donated to local nonprofit organizations, with proceeds benefitting Balanced Veterans Network and Metro Meals on Wheels.”
Wednesday is the debut for recreational marijuana at RISE stores in Brooklyn Park, Eagan, New Hope and Willmar in addition to the Mankato location at 201 Sioux Road, part of a strip mall south of River Hills Mall and just west of Best Buy. The company is planning to begin recreational sales in Baxter, St. Paul and St. Cloud in the near future.
“Our team is looking forward to introducing more Minnesotans to our industry-leading brands …,” Green Thumb President Anthony Georgiadis said in a statement.
As for Mankato’s second store, no news has been announced about its name or its planned opening date, but its license to sell is now active, Arntz said.
The store at 1889 Madison Ave. is owned by John Dinse of KOC Industries, LLC. Online records show a John Dinse as the contact of record for Voyager Cannabis Co. of Owatonna.
Three other cannabis retailers are in the process of obtaining their license to sell in Mankato, and others are being added to a waiting list, according to Arntz.