all right five seven five eighteen call the special or Workshop to order can you please do roll call here here I get a motion to adopt the agenda please remove council member Cole second council member Wong all those in favor say aye hi hi there's only two of us that's it I can throw it in there too every once in a while I was thinking about it take it up all right well it's going to all right topics I'm going to start down your list the way it is sure um you'll recall at the meeting of um what was that I think it was August 15th we had Mr Dobbs come in and do a presentation on the possible Redevelopment of the site across the street including mulcahy's um piece of property as well so the total project would be a 1.72 Acre Site forty thousand square feet of which would be owned by the city or is owned by the city would be purchased by the developer and 33 000 approximately is owned by Gary Mulcahy the project would include a 28 000 square feet in two buildings to be used primarily as garage condos but there is potential for other types of uses like a small business for example um any easements that are necessary would be retained for existing Utilities in the site so we had that presentation by Mr dabs on a day that we had um funding budget discussion so we were not able to have any conversation about how this body received that proposal The Economic Development Authority heard heard the same proposal and concept presentation and they have endorsed it to the city council and so at this point staff is looking for discussion by city council for direction on on how to move forward great questions what you saw on the proposal sorry one big question that keeps popping up in my mind is um the extent of the public benefit of this particular business and whether um you know it's serving a wide enough variety of people because it is you know public land we have now so um when we put in this business are we restricting um access to maybe even being able to participate in it um does that make sense yes um too by the way we're having some audio difficulties so we're sharing microphones so anybody that's listening online um please bear with us the last few meetings we've been having audio issues ultimate Cole I guess if you're looking for guidance in in Direction a thumbs up or a thumbs down um I guess my my concerns the development um number one is it doesn't necessarily match up with the downtown Redevelopment plan adopted in 2022 it doesn't match with the downtown master plan the 2024 comprehensive plan of the Living Street plan the the area in question is is that zone but depicted in two different ways it's part of core downtown and it's also part of downtown mixed use um in the way that the downtown mixed use was defined as its development that reflects a small town pedestrian-friendly atmosphere and Redevelopment should be considered with the historic characters I have no idea what vertical and horizontal mixed use means but it does say that high density residency is a is appropriate so and I mean to me it doesn't meet any of any of what we have set up in place already for the purposes of of that land okay somehow since there's only two of us do we want to table it for two weeks and gain other yeah so I mean it's up to it's up to you I mean I haven't heard your opinion yet but I'm just well my opinion before I yeah my opinion is part of it is we're taking some land that's was enough for sale for quite a while had people look at it and it really hasn't gone anywhere it has that big easement down the middle of it and plus we're taking private land so to me it looks like it's for me it feels like a mix to being able to take private and be able to use that land with with the right-of-way we need for the sewer and the electrical and plus the parking lot that mokay has behind it for anything else that people use the car cons for so for me it's a it's a it's a good mix I think it's they're gonna have the look they're gonna do uh as far as they can do different uh looks on the front of the building as far as facades and things like that it's small businesses it's um it's not residential people can't spend the night it's they can come in you know they can have their we have people with apartment buildings all over the place some people have cars you know that they want to move department but they got either different things they want to be able to have and sometimes a car or condo is is more reasonable when it comes to doing Tech stuff so for me it sounds like a decent fit for being able to take both sides of the land and being able to uh use it and as far as the buildings you know are building a course across the street is is a beautiful building we have an auto body place next to it that's that's a regular business Commercial we have the holiday we have some of the older ones so I think if the facade can be you know have a good look to it is the front and there's going to be coming in the front and the back um I think it's a in my mind it's a it's a good partnership because we're being able to take that piece of land that's been hard to you know that people have backed out in being able to use it with another with the other tenant that owns the other property and it takes care of parking issues that we might have because there's lots right over there as well that's my my thoughts on it so you're a summer upper I'm a thumber upper did I get a summer sideways or which direction did you go Lisa yeah I think you know uh the different maybe model of the excuse would be appropriate as well because uh uh We've made some changes to our previous development agreement is only so maybe I just think this might be a little bit committing in terms of commercial opportunities because if I understand correctly that live work is also um there's restrictions around food and that type of business um so I guess that's kind of where my concern is also part for me is you know there probably won't be any Tiff because it already is already owned by the guy who owns the other part of the land so it's going to be their money it's not going to be tax increments probably so did you thumbs up thumbs down thumbs down okay well we can table it I'm for that I'd like to move to table this item I'll second all right Council number one council member Cole all those in favor say aye hi Harmony thank you that is three and five isn't you need a group yeah I mean yeah well you got a chance to you know discuss so good thank you hey there right here at the stable that be good sure better wrote in that position once in a while yeah I get that welcome everybody can hear us kind of or if we go back and forth Army can everybody hear us if we go back and forth okay yeah we know we have issues we're trying to resolve so loud as we can okay um so I'm going to introduce Katie so Katie um has worked with our North St Paul police department for quite some time longer than I have been around um I'm right now I received investigation but I also help with our tobacco and alcohol compliance um Katie's been our partner in that so she's kind of helping with updating the ordinances which is what we're here for today um some big things we're looking at Katie will kind of go over if you guys want to have some conversations some amendments those kinds of things but we're more of the enforcement side Katie's helping us with the education that kind of portion of it so okay thank you oh God all right as you're pulling up the slides again my name is Katie Youngman I'm associate with the association for non-smokers Minnesota um and I have the great privilege to work with this community for 20 plus years um I've seen people rotate and Chiefs rotate but this has been a great partnership so far and you said come help me and we were able to do some problem solving together so tonight go to go ahead and go to the next slide um I'll be quick so if you're by your your fingers on fire um we're going to talk a little bit about the tobacco industry um and the targeting and the impact in our community we're going to talk a little bit about the state and federal updates that have happened that will we immediately said okay this needs to be updated to me state federal law and then some other policy considerations that you may or may not want to consider and then I just want to State for the record that um tonight when I refer to Tobacco I'm referring to commercial tobacco products not sacred tobacco products used in spiritual or religious practices go ahead uh again the association for non-smokers Minnesota is a non-profit dedicated to reducing the human and economic impact of commercial tobacco and nicotine and Other Drugs in Minnesota and our core commitments are to protect people from a lifetime of addiction and then um uh educate do research education and policy change to reduce Health inequities and disparities in relation to tobacco so this is kind of big but this is a great model and I think it really sums up how we do our work um as you can see we call it the Swiss cheese a model commercial tobacco prevention doing compliance checks is one piece of slice of that cheese um high prices of tobacco is another set of that that slice of that cheese um comprehensive school policies is another set of those pieces that cheese so all of these policies help eliminate the tobacco industry's influence in our community not one slice of cheese solves the whole problem um and so we need all of these pieces to help build this strong community okay just a reminder the tobacco industry um targeting is alive and well um we kind of feel like we've done this been there um but when it comes to Tobacco industry spending they spend about a million dollars per hour um marketing their products so um it is live and well we see it our kids are seeing it more than ever we are not the audience I unfortunately our kids are so um just a couple reminders there and go ahead this is hard to see I um again in Minnesota one in seven eleventh graders use e-cigarettes um oh you've seen that skyrocketed the tobacco industry we know targets are black lgbtq and American Indian and our young people um and then you know according to doctors and health experts our kids this all sets our kids up for Lifetime addiction which we all pay for all right uh we skipped one it's okay so commercial tobacco products I just want to remind everyone that it impacts us all um every Minnesotan pays almost 600 in health care costs we could spend 600 my family of four could spend that you know that money in a lot different ways so um we all pay a price for this addiction and this industry influence okay the tobacco industry targeting um just a couple points um as you can see here smoking prevalence among Minnesota adults varies depending on socioeconomic and subgroups as you can see you're fine so our unfortunately our Native American neighbors use at a pretty high rate those with poor mental health low-income um less than a high school education um and then you can see the Hispanic Latino in our black communities we're doing good with this microphone okay so again our black neighbors our indigenous lgbtq and our young people is really the focus of the industry um and then I just want to call that racism is layered into everything we do unfortunately um the industry knows this they're not an equal opportunity killer as we like to say we know that they kill our black neighbors um and vulnerable populations much more prevalently than white um educated Neighbors in 2020 the house select committee on racial Justice reported to the legislature on ways to improve social racial and equity and Justice and one of the recommendations was to end the sale of Menthol tobacco in Minnesota famous quote you guys probably have all seen this we don't smoke that we just sell it or reserve the right to smoke for The Young and the poor the black and the stupid this is when I've worked with young people this would get surround up and I used to be one of those people and I think we all used to be one of those young or poor um but we're not in that class and we're not being targeted all right tobacco industry products um I brought some samples if you have any idea of what I'm talking about and it's actually I don't know if I want you setting my sins it smells really bad it does okay I'm just gonna show us some hot products um so they come in a variety of products it's not just cigarettes like our grandpa or my grandparents oh my aunts and uncles used to smoke my dad um it's these cool fun flavored products I can pass this around this is fantasy um Fanta like the drink like a little Fanta if they see it um like this for fun hold that I can fit in the column it smells like other flavors I have are Beach Emoji Peach Emoji Mountain dude uh and crazy this is um lime and grapefruit so we know this is what our kids are using they're using flavored products 75 of Minnesota high schoolers and middle school students who use tobacco are using these flavored products um this is just kind of an evolution of what it originally started looking like these e-cigarettes or Vapes as young people will call them in 2007 they looked like cigarettes um our kids know now like I'm never gonna smoke that's gross so they've evolved into becoming very flashy fun um products that fit in your hand um that parents have no idea what they are when they're just sitting in your backpack we have um the buzz or sorry yeah good you're fine it's all good we're relaxing right all right so again 75 of our kids are using these flavored products um my famous quote that I um hear from young people all the time is I don't smoke I just Vape and we laughed a bit about this as I put this as a title but it's just a reminder it's not a Minnesota problem it's not a North Saint Paul problem it's not a Ramsey County problem it's a national problem they are alive and well and they're excluding or they're jumping through loopholes um to Market these products I also want to note that um this where's this one this product has 6 000 puffs six thousand Puffs is equivalent to two cartons of cigarettes and when kids are going through these in a day or two that's a lot of nicotine a lot of nicotine go ahead so nicotine on the Adolescent brain is not safe for our young people it's highly addictive um and we know that youth who exposed to nicotine are more likely to use other substances it kind of opens up that Gateway for that brain development to say I want that nicotine I want other substances my brain is not going to naturally make those because it's been stimulated by nicotine who's on Tick Tock here mayor come on mayor oh gosh so um I think a great example is our kids are on Tick Tock all the time this is what they're seeing I've had students I've asked students like what do you see where do you see the advertising because we don't see it at the gas station we see a little bit maybe at a gas station but they see it on their phone and where are kids on their phones unfortunately um this Tick Tock um a couple of these product for Elf bar has over a billion views so it is in their hands in every place that they are carrying their feet their bones this is other tobacco industry targeting um blow it at Pride again targeting targeting our LGBT Q neighbors um this is a mobile coupon um for enjoy and then loon is a minnesota-based company but again it's blue Razz slushy favorite flavor again our kids love it here's a couple other pieces of targeting um that I wanted to share with Cinco de Mayo um definitely um targeting our Latino neighbors and then um Vikings it's game day get your purple blizz uh loon so I don't want to leave out um I've talked a lot about all these other flavors but I don't want to leave off Menthol we know that Menthol increases nicotine absorption leading to Greater dependence so you're hooked and it's harder to quit when you're using Menthol we know that High School smokers who use Menthol are more likely to wake up with Cravings um and to become more addicted we also know that African Americans use Menthol more than any other racial group and this is no accident um in the 1950s the tobacco industry The Story Goes The Tobacco industry started had Menthol they didn't really know what to do with it doctors are recommending it they thought it would be a really great product to to Market towards women well women really didn't want the heaviness of it and so they decided we need let's target the African-American community so as you can see from the slide um this Sky Menthol use skyrocketed it is not part of the the community it is not part of the culture um I have a colleague who tells me great tells right stories of he remembers them handing out free packs of cigarettes on his Corner growing up in New York um and that's how his brother and his parents got addicted was they're handing out free menthols so we also know that um there's a lot of research about tobacco industry targeting um and there's just piles and piles of research about um how they've targeted and really um impacted our neighbors and our families there's a couple ads do you remember this 1975 ad mayor you remember Newports it was an Alpine Menthol smokers oh yeah there you go yeah um so 1975 to 2015 not much different very similar go ahead except they got more friendly mobile coupons that pop up on your phone so if you're within um a certain radius like a half mile radius of a of a place you can click on your mobile app and a coupon will pop up for a limited time that you can then get that product with a coupon pretty good huh pretty good for marketing old is new my dad used to take the thing out of the pack and put it in a box and you could cash it in for for prizes back in the 60s and 70s absolutely so yep just like you said recycle yep all right so tonight we're going to talk a little bit about the commercial control or commercial Tobacco Control best practices we talked about accessibility with tobacco compliance checks in the police department and we talked about a little bit about the appeal but we know that these are two best practices that help reduce um youth initiation rates and help people quit so um if you haven't gotten anything from me but I usually do it about in January I send out a report on kind of what your tobacco compliance checks look like for the last year so I coordinate the young people I train retailers um and then I work with law enforcement or City Licensing to actually do the compliance check so you call and say hey I need uh we need to do our compliance checks can you give me two students and I say yep you got them and then I also send a note to the retailers who pass um saying congratulations keep up the good work so that's kind of how this partnership works so our goal is to try to take some of that trying to find the students educating retailers off of your plate so you can just do the law enforcement yes of it so we've been doing that for about 20 years go ahead this is what that chart looked like in January then right okay so just a reminder that you guys have seven retailers licensed retailers um in North St Paul one has failed twice in the last two years yep and then there was a little bit of before you were here there was a little bit of things falling from the ground how do I say that we were we had a couple shuffles and who was in charge of all gone tobacco compliance um and then one of the officers who was doing tobacco compliance um was trying to just go through the learning process of what exactly the information we needed to create and then that officer left our department um so we don't have any of that information since we're no longer in contact with that officer um so we've been trying to shuffle and make sure that we're back on there um when I started going back into the tobacco compliance when I got put on light duty investigations um I've been working with Sergeant decorate and the chief and with Katie trying to figure out that this is our communication wise and what we need to update with our statutes which was a big thing when I took a look at it um I had younger siblings I'm the oldest of seven so knowing that this is out there is kind of that's super impactful to me um I'm pretty sure both my brothers even though they say they haven't they're guessing they probably have tried vaping um I was worn about the dangers of it when I was in high school but they had ads everywhere so between that um knowing the big fact that we just had the jewel um lawsuit come through is something else to really targeting our kids by making sure they're up to date with statutes it's really hard for us to say we can't convict somebody if our standards aren't up to date um and the biggest one that was glaringly read to me was the fact that our city ordinances still say that we can sell to people who are considered minors which is age of 18 which is not Ventures since I believe this 2020 is when the federal state federal ordinances and state statutes updated after the age of 21. so that means for the last almost three to four years we haven't been able to help enforce that I've been able to look back too far into it but we just want to make sure we're up to compliance especially with the fact of knowing that it's 600 that a family can spend somewhere else I have a family Katie has a family that money can like I said can use somewhere else better I grew up with a family of smokers my grandpa actually unfortunately passed away from smoking so if there's something we can do to try to curb that before it happens this would be the best way to look at that we all Impact ourselves but also impact our families and our community so okay so Federal updates tobacco 21 um they regulate a few restrictions on flavored products from the jewel it was this closed pod thing and then the FDA has declared that Menthol is harmful but has yet to act State updates um updated definition as you can see we put a draft um together but it's update updated definitions around tobacco smoking products movable place of business child resistant packaging and then tobacco 21. so um tobacco 21 occurred during 2020 um and it increased the age to purchase to 21. it removed purchase use and possession penalties for young people it really looks at holding the retailers accountable for responsible sales it requires age verification for those under 30 and then signage at the point of sale so that's what this your state level policy would be um and then there's a revised penalty structure for the state minimums again the state can set the minimum local municipalities can go stronger um the state minimum for the first offense if you sell to someone is 300 um Chief and officer Mao had suggested 500 the second offense within 36 months is 600 a state minimum Police Department had recommended or asked for a thousand with a three-day suspension and then your third offense um it really holds retailers accountable um and it shows that this is important it's a privilege to sell tobacco products within our community and and we don't ever want them to get to that third offense and we hope they never do so by doing education and but again I put some teeth to it and then just a little a quick update on some other best practices that your neighbors have been doing are ending the sale of flavored tobacco products that's kind of going across the state limiting the number of licensed retailers Little Canada has done that Richfield has done that and then zoning proximity to youth oriented facilities inside it looks kind of looks at sign code okay so here's a list oh this is really hard to see of other communities that have regulated the sale of flavored um products Arden Hills Roseville Falcon Heights Saint Paul Shoreview Lauderdale Richfield Edina Etc so it's kind of a growing movement across the state um and we hope there is a bill at the state legislature um to also hopefully take action but we know that all these little pieces help push the state um capping the number of tobacco licenses this could be done a different couple different ways um that it could be done or it was a way to decrease commercial tobacco through density and location so if it's harder to get to it's harder to keep using or ever start So based on the population density in North St Paul you currently have seven licenses about to about 12 000 residents equal to about one retailer to every 1700 residents so um you could look at it that way based on density you could cap it on the current licenses so you could say no more than seven or you could put it at no more than three and then through attrition it comes back down and so when someplace says I'm not going to sell tobacco anymore you just don't renew that license or you could cap it at zero um so no new licenses Little Canada and Bloomington have done the zero which is the highlight of what that Golden Valley Roseville has kept it at four here's a proximity piece This research this map was done a number of years ago but it really shows um the density of tobacco retailers within Ramsey County um so it's overlaid with um uh population and density so you can see in the higher concentrated populated areas there's more tobacco shops so the light yellow is low population if you look at North Oaks I look at um they only have three but if you look towards the Midway or University Avenue in St Paul it's highly densely populated and a lot of tobacco shops so just start closing um addressing commercial tobacco locally is really a great leadership opportunity for your Council um we know that when Minnesota cities lead the state usually follows with tobacco 21 Clean Indoor Air um Federal Regulators move slowly they've been sued for their inaction um and could be involved with years of litigation flavors we know that people are using flavors um if we can just cut the flavors out I bet all my kids that I work with would say I would probably never be using um and then capping we talked about density um easier to help prevent the start and those quit and then that proximity piece so in closing here's my layer prevention model you can use this for a variety of things I'm open to questions we did work with public health law Center to draft an ordinance that I think is in your packet yep um with comments on there there's some it said that is this is state law federal law updates that you would consider and then there's some that say you can go above Beyond so if any questions on any other product I have a whole jar of stuff here you've got pineapple lemonade oh here's these [Music] cool mint yes have you guys seen the litter for any of these oh what the litter so these products are considered hazardous waste and they actually need to go to Ramsey County um hazardous waste site um but we see them in the trash on the side of the street sure nobody thinks about it there's basically little batteries that are inside of them um and the other thing that when I was in school that we learned about I don't know if are you guys able to hear me um something that I learned about when I was in school so not even that Katie brought up back to my attention but was when we would buy you know you get the cheaper stuff because that's what the high school kids can get you ordered online Black Market whatever else um you actually get super cheap juices and what they would do is they would have little shards of metal in the ego was called popcorn long and it would Scar the inside of your lungs degrading tiny shards of metal inside of your lungs which is kids like this like she said they don't smoke they Vape that's it's still smoking so it's something to think about something that kids don't think about until you show them the pictures and then they're like oh that's disgusting that's that could be what's inside of you if you don't take care of yourself and don't quit then again with targeting with the different flavors and stuff they have no idea and the amount of nicotine that's in there is two cartons a day is a lot especially for smaller people like myself we all know I'm not very tall if you think about that inside of a 14 year old brain and they're still working on developing two cartons a day even they're gonna grow an adult is quite a bit um so is that in a Red Bull they're drinking and everything else the nicotine no I don't believe so but the amount of caffeine saying yeah we had it all together that's yep it's not not great um what other questions do you guys have do you guys um I know he said obviously we have to update stuff for the federal stuff to come to the federal guidelines that's not really an option um but the fact of bringing up like the differences in proximity um differences in flavors because obviously it's not a state mandated but that's an option for you as Council to set up um what are you guys opinions thoughts questions so we have Katie at our disposal for a while hopefully um when you do compliance checks on the stores I don't know if you yeah when you do compliance check on the stores I don't know if you still use explorers program like you used to um does do those checks also count for the possible three to five hundred dollar fine or is that separate from the um so from part of it so we actually use Katie's interns okay um because we are at first we're gonna use our csos and we can't really use our csos only one of them works for the agent requirement plus you know it's kind of hard to say with the enforcement stuff um I have not had any violations personally when I've been doing them um for checks but it would be something that we can enforce that way and the better part is that it goes to the retailer rather than to like the sales clerk um you're punishing the people who should know better than selling to our kids I I just didn't know if the compliance failure counted as okay I'm sorry so yes it does different compliance checks that are occurring so there's a federal one to make sure that products are behind the counter there's age of verification those are occurring those um the FDA does not communicate well to cities I try to check it regularly but it it kind of comes and goes um so there's those checks that are happening across the state um and um DHS is is doing those then there's the signar checks which are educational there's about a hundred of them done across the state and then these are your local licensing ones and this is where your fine would come into a place yes thank you yeah good question other questions about compliance trucks questions new things about the flavors or anything else that they were bringing them yeah first of all thank you for presenting this um this is something uh that is close to me as well um from a a personal level my grandfather also died from tobacco smoking um so thank you for sharing that um I think that um looking at the flavored component um as a person of color who also identifies as lgbtq I don't want that for for kids especially kids that may be extra exposed to it so for me I think very strongly about looking at that flavor component and and yeah getting rid of it um but that's that is my opinion um and I think you know for me the data is very clear anything else you know thank thank you again this is awesome information if you've heard before I heard you know ten times it just needs to be heard so thank you question I have is what's the action for thank you what's the action for tonight um are we looking to make recommendation that we move forward with all the changes that have been made or is it just from a presentation standpoint I have a I haven't read all the red lines I've just looked you know some of the big ones pop out 18 should be 21. yeah that duh I mean some some of the big ones are are there that bring Federal into city um so what what direction are we looking for tonight okay so staff reviewed this and are they aligned with um our staff has our staff has um and so like Katie mentioned so it's um Mitchell Hamlin public law is actually the one who looked over our city ordinance and they're the ones who give us the recommendations that it falls into State Statute Federal statutes all of that fun stuff um it just goes into the port of looking at again interest in doing um the proximity the flavor those kinds of things that aren't required by State Statute to update if you guys had opinions on those or things you would say yay or Naya we don't want this or we want to take this and modify it um for what our needs are for the city I mean I wouldn't mind having further conversation along the lines of flavor density you know I I that's not what's being asked in this document but that's for an event I I would certainly entertain additional conversation around that and those other cities already went through this this sounds like the little can and all that we're a little Little Canada Roseville someone say like are you guys on board like just break down to four steps uh state and federal updates yes yes absolutely yeah are you on board for um furthering conversation around density and proximity to youth orientated facilities yes all right okay are you on board for like the this is there's no number in there but license capping like think of how many licenses you want to give out when you say on board you mean for the conversation further conversation yes yes further conversation definitely not necessarily blanket on board I'm open to it absolutely for further conversation yes there you go or before all right so yes those other communities have done it um that most should be done yep yep the most recent one was Richfield my colleague was there um and the other um I think there's been these policies in play for a long time actually you know you're not the first and you're kind of in the middle um but most retailers we did an assessment this summer and most retailers are complying so it's it's pretty good and you know they say oh we can't sell tell the city you know and so there's a really good compliance rate of just voluntary compliance so I think what we could do we have um for Oregon's finalization yep and then 30 days sounds like a plan to me yeah thank you thank you so much yeah appreciate your time want me to leave any of this with you guys mayor has to go into treatment got into the goodie box oh thank you thank you thanks you're awesome sorry about being late it wasn't my intention to slight you in any way shape or form Shasta orange Vape she's profiling you oh I'm saying she's sorry wow oh yes she just got these so you could have okay stop smoking about Dave cigarettes it is so true that addiction is like but I just look at your grape and I'm like oh yeah totally yep thank you all thank you appreciate it being fun and thank you all your good work thank you take your time all right Jack you bring a box yeah you got show and tell here bud thank you well sorry I know I promise what happened all right this do you want me was here fine you want me over there okay you have anything you're going to be popping up or uh yes you should have a PowerPoint that was part of the agenda items by the look and I think so don't make her cry she threatened to do it once today starts on page 51 of the packet um just we're starting with the PowerPoint yeah thank you Gary all right I don't know if there's a better way to get the uh there we go full slide in there Perfect all right so I'm here to talk about uh cannabis legalization um specifically with an eye towards sort of uh what the role you know cities and local governments have um it's kind of kind of be an overview hit the next slide um this is a pretty broad overview and again it's sort of focused on the city parts of it uh at any point I'm have you know I have kind of an outline I can just sit here and talk at you for the next we've got a half an hour but feel free to jump in at any point if you have sort of specific questions you want me to address something in particular um so kind of the high level you know it happened this year put a big old asterisk on that the law got passed this year not everything takes effect this year it's a very deliberately sort of phased implementation um ah it's 25 minutes okay yeah um recurring theme that's probably going to happen tonight is you're going to ask me some questions and I'm going to say boy that's a really good question I wish I knew the answer to it um it's a pretty comprehensive bill it's about 350 Pages or something of legislation but there's still a lot of details still to be worked out um there will be a lot of Gap filling regulations that are going in there but you know we we haven't seen those yet so we don't know how they're going to necessarily shake out kind of from the uh the 30 000 foot view there's kind of three main prongs so first uh legalize private individual purchase use possession that's happened already uh the second one is there's going to be a sort of regulated commercial Market uh so you're allowed to have it you're allowed to buy it you're not allowed you're not allowed to sell it yet so the the whole sales process is going to be regulated there's a new state agency for this um we'll spend the most of the presentation talking about that probably then the third big prong is there's an expungement of convictions under the previous laws so if you were convicted of simple drug possession or sort of marijuana crimes previously I'm not going to talk about that because it is a completely state level process there is no involvement from the city uh big um footnote on all of this no change to federal law um we did get some exciting news um yesterday or late last week that there's an official recommendation to reschedule marijuana to a schedule three controlled substance it's currently at schedule one um that's still just a recommendation I think we're still looking at two to three years until that action is would be finalized um so for right now no change to federal laws so use kind of that big first big prong um broadly speaking permits individual adult use and possession and that's similar to Tobacco like we just discussed that's defined as 21 and up there's some limits on how much you can possess they're pretty high limits um we don't necessarily know that anyone's going to be uh struggling with the amount you're allowed to possess uh generally speaking the the law says that you can use in private residences private property and on a licensed premise and then there are some specific places where you're not allowed to use it there's kind of a gray area for sort of you know if it's not a private residence or um private property or a licensed premise it seems like it is illegal to use but there's not necessarily a penalty to use you know leave it to you whether that's meaningfully different from being illegal um the city cam has some role here so you can adopt an ordinance and North Saint Paul actually has already imposing a petty misdemeanor for some use in public I believe the city went with um just smoking use in public um there's uh some restrictions on you know sort of secondhand smoke possession in schools uh and then as of right now there are no rules about multi-family housing starting 2025 um smoking will be banned in multi-family housing uh for sort of employment purposes um generally speaking again broadly now legal for adult use there are these seven categories of employees who are still allowed to be drug tested for it so it's not necessarily a crime any longer but there are potential um particularly for you know peace officers firefighters there's potential employment consequences uh there's also potential licensing consequences so anyone who needs a CDL that's done by Federal Department of Transportation it's still illegal they still test for it they will deny your CDL if you use cannabis if you have a firearm that's through Federal ATF they think it's illegal they test for it they will deny your firearm they as we've seen in the news they will potentially prosecute you um if you are you know purchasing using a firearm um while being a cannabis user so uh definitely something worth sort of highlighting to city employees that you know yes broadly this is now legal um there are still potential consequences particularly given the lack of sort of day of testing testing is not currently able to distinguish between currently high and you know have used potentially as long as you know weeks to a couple months ago um so just be very careful for you know employment purposes uh so as far as again I imagine we're going to spend most of our time on sort of regulatory parts so there's a new agency the office of cannabis management or ocm you'll hear me talk a lot about ocm in this presentation um they have a lot of different roles uh they eventually will take over all regulation of recreational and medical cannabis again there's kind of a phased um phased process to get there we'll kind of talk about some of the some of the specifics of that they also have quite a lot of new rulemaking Authority uh although uh I don't think they even have a a director yet so we haven't seen any proposed regulations um to know what shape those are going to kind of take yet uh commercial regulation is going to be pretty comprehensive um be a bunch of licensed types split from you know they sort of seed to sale uh it's going to be further split between sort of full strength and lower potency so we're going to see a divide between cannabis uh which is um it's based on the concentration of THC which is the active ingredient um sort of what actually provides the high uh and hemp hemp plants are defined as below 0.3 percent THC and that's currently legal uh hemp has been legal to grow in Minnesota since 2014 or 2015. um so there's no necessarily changes on the hemp that's where all of the all the currently legal gummies all the salsos and things those are all hemp products uh commercial regulation is also going to be almost entirely at the state level all of these licenses are going to be state licenses they will be issued and administered by ocm at the state um again we'll talk about there's some specific rules for cities that we'll get to kind of at the end of this um retail sales uh is kind of the big one that gets a lot of attention um so this is for cannabis specifically they're going to be separate businesses dispensaries think like a liquor store um there are very restrictive licensing conditions there's a very restrictive list of types of products that dispensaries will be able to sell they were able to sell basically cannabis and paraphernalia and magazines uh and like bags to carry it home with um so you cannot sell cannabis and alcohol in the same place um very pretty hefty restrictions on selling cannabis and food in the same place um these are going to be sort of you know one stop you know um single product type of businesses um there will be a limited number of licenses we'll get into how that gets calculated later part of this is uh the state is also added an equity score so it will be a scored license application part of it is applicants from underrepresented backgrounds underrepresented communities um those sorts of things again a lot of this is we know they're gonna do something about it but we don't know exactly how it's going to work yet so current products like I mentioned the the seltzers the gummies the stuff that's currently legal um that's going to remain legal without change for now it will eventually be governed by its own set of state licenses um that's probably going to start around March 2025 is sort of a date that a lot of things are changing over um and again this will be sort of um manufacturer distribution retail separate kinds of licenses um until we get there right now um you know sort of as of before all these new laws got passed regulation was done by Minnesota Department of Health Department of Health is going to continue doing this regulation until the handoff in 2025 they will have to register anyone who's selling these products we'll have to register with the state by October 1st of this year and then mdh has already hired created the exact number of employees I think 16 or 18 inspectors to start doing compliance checks on these businesses um so there is there's been some compliance issues um since they were legalized in 2022 but there are there's uh sort of uh standing up that inspection process um over the next year or so but in terms of where these are going to be sold this is a much less restrictive um you know it's restricted and has to come from hemp and you're limited to five milligrams per dose 50 milligrams per package or if it's a salt or a beverage it's 10 milligrams per package uh so fairly low dosage but as long as you're meeting those requirements um you can sell it pretty much anywhere as long as it's you know generally comports with your business uh and there also will be some on-premise consumption endorsements that will be available for that so there will be continue to be bars can sell it breweries can sell it uh that sort of thing so like I said uh kind of at the beginning um largely State process pretty much completely preempted at the local level um specifically calls out you cannot ban use possession Transportation distribution at the city level and cannot prohibit any business from operating if it has a valid state license through ocm so uh given that kind of what's left there are some things so zoning the city will have a role in reviewing applications from ocm so you'll have to demonstrate compliance with what city code uh there is there is a local registration I'll talk about that process um in a minute here and then the city also has a role in enforcement and compliance of all of these sort of various procedures so zoning cannabis businesses are another type of business they're subject to General zoning regulations that apply to sort of any type of business um so a retail you know cannabis retail is a type of retail business so they can't open in a single-family residential cannabis cultivation is an agricultural business so they're only going to be allowed in cultural zones that sort of thing um just sort of as a note uh they are subject to zoning ordinances but you're not allowed to ban it so there has to be sort of at least one zoning category where they are allowed to be there are some specific um zoning requirements that yeah the state statute says you're allowed to impose as a city so it's reasonable restrictions on the time place and manner of the operation of a cannabis business it's not entirely clear what that means again coming back to my theme time place and manner is a legal term of art that comes from First Amendment speech regulations um how that's going to apply to sort of commercial operations of the business remains to be seen a couple of specific things they do mention so it specifically mentions you're allowed to impose setbacks on the sale of cannabis and that's up to a thousand feet from a school and 500 feet from a daycare Residential Treatment Facility or attraction within a public park that is regularly used by miners um so that's going to be things like uh you know playgrounds potentially baseball fields water features those sorts of things and then again you're specifically given some amount of power over hours of operation it is an extremely confusingly written statute basically there are summer hours that the businesses definitely can operate there are some hours they definitely can't operate and then the city gets to make a decision on those hours the state hasn't decided the city gets to come in and say you know when are you allowed to operate uh also within zoning power there's a specific moratorium Authority City can pass a moratorium prohibiting cannabis businesses uh unlike the normal zoning moratorium which is a one-year moratorium here it has a specific end date it's until January 1st 2025. um so you can prohibit it until 2025. but it's already prohibited if you don't have a license and ocm has already said that they're not going to be ready to issue licenses until March 2025. So currently we don't necessarily see any need to impose a moratorium um we have seen some uh frankly in my opinion boundless optimism from the Cannabis industry that thinks that a new state agency is going to be founded and finished rulemaking ahead of schedule uh I don't necessarily see any risk of that but uh there's also not a particular cost to passing a moratorium if the city wanted to just to make sure we're covered on that uh like I mentioned licensing involvement um so these are all going to be city or state licenses they're going to go through the state agency but once the state agency receives a completed application they will forward it to the city the city gets 30 days to review for local you know zoning fire code compliance um and then can provide any additional element information it believes is relevant so if there is a particular applicant that the city knows you know hey you know this person has re has just had a lot of compliance problems before there's a particular location you know there's been a lot of gang violence at this location or this location is you know right at a major school bus stop or something like that um that's the kind of information that the city can pass on uh the state will presumably then be free to ignore it if they feel like it uh but they they are specifically asking that you provide it so there is some involvement like I mentioned there's a local registration this functions kind of like issuing them a license um any business making a retail sales um including the low potency stuff so including the hemp must register with the city it's kind of like a licensing application except there is no uh discretion on the city's side right if they have the state license if they've paid their fees and if they pass a compliance check then you must issue it to them so you're not allowed to sort of pick and choose um you are allowed to limit uh they're allowed to charge some fees for that and that's capped as sort of um maximum fee or half of the State Licensing fee uh and then there are limits on the number of registrations that the city um sort of has to issue it's not fewer than one license per 12 500 residents for North St Paul that potentially it's either one or two depending on which year of the census data that we're looking at um it has not quite been decided how that's going to get defined I believe based on the 2020 census which is the last sort of hard data that we have it would be two licenses um and it has to be sort of you have to issue at least those two licenses you could decide to impose a cap that is higher than two licenses you could say no more than three or four licenses or you could leave it uncapped and say you know sort of Leave It to the market uh you're also allowed to decline registration if there's one active registration per 12 500 residents across the county um for Ramsey County I forget the exact number I think it's 85-ish stores um it's not entirely clear how that is going to work either we presume that the state is going to have a list of active registrations um again that is a may do not a must do so the city could decide to cap it at that number or could decide to go out more but there's sort of a floor to how many you have to allow enforcement and compliance like I mentioned public use ordinance cities past that already um there will also be some amount of City compliance checks so that includes age verifications and operation requirements uh it seems like this is going to look very close to liquor store compliance tracks or tobacco store compliance checks you know we're gonna get a volunteer teenager they're going to go and try and make a sale we'll see if it happens if they get carded or not uh compliance checks have been at least once per year for each license holder um City retains of course all you know standard um zoning sign ordinances snow removal loitering all of the usual City powers for business regulations also still apply um what happens if we find um a problem with one of these businesses so there's a complaint process it goes to ocm uh the city is also allowed to suspend the again that registration so in order to have a business that is legal you have to have a license from the state and a registration from the city if you don't have that registration if it's been suspended then you're not allowed to make any sales and the city can impose a civil penalty of up to two thousand dollars per violation which means per sale if a business decides to sort of thumb its nose at the city and just keep going the city is only allowed to suspend that registration for up to 30 days maximum 30-day action beyond that so uh on the day that you issue the suspension you then have to notify the state and then it's a state decision if the state wants to take a longer suspension or revocation of that license the state can do that but the city is kept at a 30-day suspension uh there is within the statute there is an appeal mechanism for those State sort of permanent actions there is not a statutory appeal mechanism for City actions but you're still closing a business for 30 days so we would recommend to avoid you know potential constitutional claims we think the city probably should have some kind of an appeals on that as well to sort of process these registration actions uh some financing the money part how is this all getting paid for um the initial law contains about 70 million dollars in state funding long term there is a 10 sales tax on all the sort of gross receipts of hemp and cannabis that's fairly low as far as cannabis taxes go um we've seen some indications the idea is to sort of keep the legal products cheap to try and sort of squash the black market because of course if it's cheaper to just go to your your guy on the street corner people will do that still uh of that tax money that gets collected 80 goes to the state 20 there is a dedicated fund that gets split between counties and cities it works out to about one percent of gross sales of hemp and cannabis will go directly to local city government Aid and that's going to be distributed sort of based on the share of licensed businesses within each City but it seems like that's potentially going to be a fairly substantial amount of money um there will also be a lot of um model ordinances and model policies coming out of the new state agency so it seems like they're going to be a fair amount of guidance and support for doing some of these you know compliance checks and things as well so we don't anticipate it being you know sort of a budgetary burden to handle these businesses like I said a lot of state aid and assistance for this there's also going to be a lot of uh seems like there'll be a lot of Grants and training because particularly the financial aid for law enforcement for things like impaired driver assessment um field testing and evaluation drug recognition expert testing three minutes okay um so uh that's a lot of information that I've just dumped all on your plate uh next steps to think about zoning look at sort of updating potentially General regulations things like you know loitering starting to look at those business regulations um particularly these setbacks although again we're going to start seeing model ordinances at some point so we're mostly going to be waiting on those um researching um some of the trainings are going to be available start looking at maybe updating uh employee policy employee policies generally say something to the effect of no illegal drug use cannabis is no longer an illegal drug so make sure to clarify that uh you have kind of a list of our proposed potential ordinances that we'd need and then last couple of minutes uh for any questions make sure I got to everything oh uh one thing I did get a question from councilmember Cole about can the city own a dispensary cities can own a dispensary that's what the law says the law says cities can own a dispensary that's all the information we get um there's going to be a lot of sort of practical problems with that in terms of payment processing right Banks or subject to Federal Regulations it's illegal at a federal level Insurance the league of Minnesota cities offers liquor store insurance for municipal liquor stores that will not cover cannabis so the league is working on getting some kind of um update on that there are potentially if the city really wants to examine it we have been reached out to by some sort of larger cannabis businesses from other states who are looking to be a sort of a hired manager or partner for a municipal store um so that's a potential option as well but a lot of uncertainty uh or any particular other questions to address do private businesses do private businesses have the right to say no if I own a strip mall can I say no I do not yes yep so um uh the question is use on in a private business and that is still up to the property owner they are allowed to set property rules for their own property so strip mall or restaurant patio that decision is going to be up to the business owner of whether a business comes in or not oh where the business comes in um well maybe that would be a leasing decision for like a strip mall um so they yeah there's nothing that requires them to approve it yeah so one one of my questions Jack that I sent to you revert you know referred to around a timeline um and nothing can really take place until 1 125. but if we want to if we want to do zoning when should the city start to move and the reason my question is can someone come in and acquire property today that's currently not that's currently not Zone to not sell cannabis move forward in a you know in fingers crossed that they're going to get the business and then the city is restricted to what they can do can they rent properties so they they could buy a piece of property they could rent a piece of property at this point they are not a business that is operating and so that risk is entirely on them you know if someone wants to buy a property in the hopes that it will stay in an allowable zoning District um you know it's not a prior lawful use because it is not an active use until they have that state license um potentially if we want to look at some of those hemp restrictions that we might want to move a little faster on because those products are legal for sale currently um so that might be something to you know move forwards on although again those products have been legal for sale since uh 2022 um so if we haven't necessarily seen problems with that yet and they also haven't needed to notify the city or ask for the permit to sell they haven't yet no so that starting October 1st they have to register with the state and then starting March 2025 state license register with the city okay well yeah thank you very much for having me and you'll have my contacts information if you have any um sort of specific questions I'm I'm sure you will continue to hear from me um and feel free to reach out if you have any particular questions that come up here [Music]