Will Mpls Zoning Laws Doom Small Weed Dispensaries?

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

Dispensary Hopeful Could Be Stuck in Zoning Hell

When Flipside opened at 36th & Bryant earlier this year, owners Tess and Josh Fellman were upfront with the city that they had plans to become a full dispensary when recreational flower sales became legal. But one provision in Minneapolis’s proposed adult-use cannabis amendment could wreck their dream: Dispensaries would be required to be located “within a contiguous commercial or industrial area of at least five acres.” Flipside is in a business zone that’s only 3.8 acres. “We knew there'd be some hiccups in this line of work. I didn't quite expect this one,” Josh tells Racket.

The five-acre rule is a law from the 1950s—one that liquor stores already adhere to. But Fellman argues that these business zones need to be updated, especially in the ever-growing neighborhoods of south Minneapolis.

“I'm sure that the very large commercial nodes like Uptown or the triangle in Northeast are going to have huge national companies come in, because they're the ones that can afford the rent,” he says. "Opening up commercial nodes gives opportunities to smaller businesses like us to operate in smaller spaces." He also notes that, under these rules, the North Side would only have three locations that could accommodate a dispensary.

Flipside currently has a petition on its website asking the city to consider dropping the zone requirement (St. Paul already opted for none) or allowing conditional use permits. So far, over 100 people have signed.

“Essentially, what's going to happen is you're going to have cannabis zones where there's going to be like six dispensaries in one half mile area,” Fellman says. “I don't know why the city would want that.”

No One Wants a Crypto Mine in Their Town

Cryptocurrencies, digital money created by miscellaneous finance bros and businessmen, don’t just appear out of thin air. They have to be mined, and by mining we’re talking about warehouses filled with giant computers calculating the going rate of their rogue currencies via trades/transactions. These mines are a huge drain on the environment. In 2022, Bitcoin consumed more energy than the entire country of Argentina, and a 2024 survey from the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration estimates that crypto mining consumes up to 2.3% of U.S. electricity. 

So why would someone want a crypto mine in their town? Often, these companies claim to lower bills, as they end up paying tens of thousands of dollars in monthly energy fees. Not the best logic, as it assumes that providers would lower their rates after landing a high-paying client instead of just keeping the money.

So far Minnesota, the lure of cheaper energy bills hasn't outweighed the cons of hosting a crypto mine. This week, Windom in southwest Minnesota rejected a proposal from Revolve Labs. The Colorado-based company estimated it would be paying the city $35,000 a month in service fees, but residents were more concerned that noise pollution from the plant would impact their property values. (Revolve Lab’s mine in Glencoe was found to exceed state noise standards this summer.) Brainerd’s City Council denied VCV Digital Infrastructure an interim use permit twice the year, despite the city already having a contract with the company to purchase land. A study there also showed that noise would be a problem and that city council also concluded that the promised job creation would not be “an efficient use of the city’s assets.”

So while Minnesota Rep./Majority Whip Tom Emmer may be a crypto bro, Minnesota isn't necessarily a crypto-friendly state.

Dammit! Fair State Loses Its Beer Garden.

If you’re a fan of Fair State Brewing Coop, then you know they’ve had a wild ride this year. The cooperatively owned, unionized northeast Minneapolis brewery filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protections in February. “The simple reality is the pandemic dug a large hole for us,” co-founder/CEO Evan Sallee told Racket at the time. In September, after successfully consolidating their debt, they announced that the future looked bright; financial projections suggest that sales could surpass $14 million by 2027, and they had budgeted $3.3 million for equipment updates.

This week, Fair State took another hit: The backyard patio is no more. “Similarly to the taproom, we leased the beer garden space which is no longer up for renewal,” explains their member newsletter, shared via Reddit.

Fare thee well, beer garden. We at Racket appreciate you hosting our launch party and three B-day gatherings.

Minneapolis Glove Guy Goes National!

Jimmy Lonetti, the owner of America’s only shop solely dedicated to baseball glove repair, was featured last night on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt. “A glove should be a lifetime investment,” he tells reporter Maggie Vespa. “Buy a good one, take care of it, and you’ll have it forever.”

His south Minneapolis business, D&J Glove Repair, opened at 37th & Minnehaha in 2022. "I kinda outgrew my garage," he told Racket of his move from online to storefront at the time.

You can watch the segment below. "NBC News were at the shop for over seven hours," Lonetti told Racket yesterday. "Will be interesting to see how it all gets edited down to a two-minute segment."