ST. PAUL, Minn. (GRAY) – As Minnesota’s legal cannabis market continues to get off the ground the rollout process has recently seen some delays.

Last week, the Office of Cannabis Management, or OCM, announced it would be cancelling it’s pre-approval process. The process was originally slated to hand out license pre-approvals to social equity applicants, but legal challenges led the OCM to cancel the process altogether.

One applicant was Nick Rahn, owner of The Warrior’s Garden in downtown St. Paul. A veteran, Rahn qualified as a social equity applicant under the bill. He was hoping to use pre-approval as a sort of assurance when applying for loans and doing remodels to prepare for the retail market.

“The whole point of it is to get retail so we can have five stores, so I can donate as much money as possible to my nonprofit, so I can help veterans as much as possible,” said Rahn.

Rahn and others like him hoped to get a jump on the process through pre-approval. It would have also allowed cultivation to begin, prepping supply for the launch of a new industry.

“The social equity program, I thought was a great idea to begin with,” said Rahn, “And, you know, the hope of it was to get our license ahead of time so we can actually get started, you know, before everybody else, which would have been awesome.”

Instead, Rahn, like many others was denied entry into the Office of Cannabis Management’s pre-approval lottery for social equity applicants. He says they sent him a denial, but details on what was wrong with the application were vague.

“The application process was pretty simple, but I was part of the group of like 1300 people that got denied without getting a deficiency letter,” Rahn said.

When OCM decided to get rid of pre-approval altogether, they also implemented some policies that could help clarify things for business owners like Rahn.

“OCM will send requests for more information to applicants who were denied in pre-approval,” said OCM Interim Director Charlene Briner in a press call last week, “and they will have an opportunity to correct a broader range of issues in their applications, and will also have the opportunity for reconsideration.”

Still, the decision to get rid of pre-approval altogether puts things in limbo. Despite Rahn’s frustrations with the process, he says it would’ve been helpful to get the ball rolling.

“It’s a double-edged sword,” he said, “I wanted the lottery to happen so the growers could start growing. I was upset, I was frustrated, but at the same time, it would have been nice to have the system still go through. However, when people were wrongly denied, that’s injustice, and I don’t like that.”

The Office of Cannabis Management projects it will hold a regular license lottery in May or June of next year.

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