---

What do you do when one advisory body recommends action on a decision pending before you,  and a second advisory group wants a delay?  Taylors Falls city council this week unanimously chose the directive from the Economic Development Commission (EDC) to delay voting on two cannabis licenses being made available in ordinance.  At least for six months.

Monday night this week, council agreed on tabling this cannabis licensing decision until November.   

The city has been reviewing three viable proposals to buy a city lot that are tied to having a license for retail adult cannabis sales.  There have been two announced closed door meetings between city and advisory bodies analyzing the requests.  A public open meeting presentation of the lot purchase offers was held last month.

The public lot on mainstreet has been on the market for 15 years.   When the Minnesota Department of Transportation relocated its sand-salt maintenance facility to the Taylors Falls city hall/fire hall complex on the west side of the city, the city purchased the former state highway shop using a no-interest loan from the county.  The debt service for this transaction is currently $5,000 annually to Chisago County, according to the most recent Taylors Falls audit data. Besides still owing money on the property, the city also gets no tax revenues from an empty parcel.

The purchase proposals hinge, however,  on the city making a second license available for a cannabis business just authorized under new Minnesota laws. Applicants pre-approved could begin to be licensed by the state as soon as late summer. 

Taylors Falls has already agreed that an existing low dose hemp shop, The Bridge, will be first in line for cannabis licensing when Minnesota begins to issue licenses.  

The Bridge owner Buck Duncan also serves on the city EDC, but he did not speak Monday night.  The commission chair, Peter Vitalis, who operates the Drive In and Molly Irish, who is in real estate, did speak.  During a quasi public hearing atmosphere that ensued, Roger Vanelli and Scott Sheahan, who submitted two of the proposals under consideration also spoke, as did a number of citizens.  

In all, the give-and-take on a second license spanned about two hours.

Two proposals involve a cannabis license as a condition of acquisition, and a third seeks a “temporary” license for about 24 months until a location (not the city lot) that the entrepreneur has in mind becomes available in town. 

One proposal from “Cannabis & Glass”, a national company, was rejected Monday for being too large. Council felt the operation will be run from afar and is too corporate.  Council members were uncomfortable about losing control, they stated.  

Council member Carol Schumann had earlier expressed reluctance to even one license being available and firmly repeated her opposition to more than one licensee. She shared concerns about any state sanctioned recreational cannabis uses.

A closer to home proposal includes a phased development by resident Scott Sheahan.  This concept includes a year-round restaurant, grocery and/or coop store and other lease spaces and a parking lot.   The project is presented as happening over multiple phases and although Sheahan would pay the debt service and taxes, the city might not see immediate sitework taking place.

Vitalis, who is an EDC member and the chair, told council the commission wants to put the lot back on the market. 

Meanwhile, the Vannelli proposal, which is eyeing another site and just wants the second license, was described as being “temporary”  and not formalized enough.  Council did not reject it outright though.  

Mayor Brandon Weiberg commented that he has had good talks with Vannelli and he also likes what the Sheahan plan offers, but added he also now wants to consider a municipal cannabis operation. 

He said he wants the delay on the decision to investigate what the City of Wyoming is pursuing, to see if it could work in Taylors Falls.  (Story in Press April 24.)

Vitalis said the group’s advice is “part of the puzzle” the council needs to piece together,  to reach a decision.   

Commission member Irish, whose expertise is in real estate, explained she thinks she can rustle up additional offers and she would “waive” normal fees to list it. 

She maintained this lot has not been marketed at all.

Chisago County HRA/EDA Executive Director Nancy Hoffman, reached on the phone Tuesday, told the Press the lot’s availability has been marketed “pretty broadly” albeit as a commercial site, so  it is not on residential inventory.  

The county promotes commercial-industrial properties through the Minnesota Commercial Association of Realtors listings, and sites are on Loopnet, they are promoted at commercial land conferences in the Twin Cities and Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development has non residential county parcels in its database.  Hoffman recalled being on-site with the former Taylors Falls mayor a number of times, meeting with possible buyers.  But challenges and aspects of the lot proved hard to overcome. 

Taylors Falls accepted an earnest payment to hold the lot for several months a couple years ago, but that project fell through and the deposit was returned.

“It is probably not a bad thing to wait and see,” Hoffman observed about the council tabling the license decision.

---