RED WING, Minn. — Island Pezi, the state’s newest tribal adult-use cannabis company, has seen a steady stream of customers since its soft opening on Monday.
The dispensary is owned and operated by the Prairie Island Indian Community near Red Wing, less than an hour from downtown Minneapolis. It's far closer to the Twin Cities market than Red Lake and White Earth, the two tribal nations that opened dispensaries in Northern Minnesota.
Blake Johnson, president of Prairie Island CBH Inc., said this store is the culmination of a process that started a year and a half ago, navigating through regulations, business planning, and designs. That included the decision to use the word Pezi – one of the ways of saying "grass" in the Dakota language.
"This name came about through a community effort, so the name and the logo design was all a community-based effort that brought everything together to get the community involvement," Johnson told KARE.
"As Dakota people anything that comes from Ina Maka which is Mother Earth, is something that’s meant to be here. We see that as a medicine. That is our approach to this."
Indeed, many of the customers leaving the Island Pezi store told us they use cannabis products for pain management or to help with anxiety and insomnia. None of them wanted to be quoted for this article, or to appear on camera, saying their co-workers and relatives aren't all on board with legalized weed yet.
For now, Prairie Island is selling cannabis and hemp-derived products made by the White Earth Community, through a tribe-to-tribe agreement.
"We don’t have product available on our reservation for the time being, so being able to partner with White Earth to sell their product here at the start is one of those opportunities to show our sovereignty, to work with tribal-to-tribal government relations."
The state is still in the process of setting final rules for commercial cannabis operators and putting a licensing system in place for 2025. In the meantime, the state's sovereign tribal nations can get a head start on retail sales.
For now, it’s a cash-only business at Island Pezi, but debit cards will be added soon. And it’s strictly a to-go proposition — no consumption of cannabis is allowed on property, any public spaces on the reservation, or at neighboring Treasure Island Resort and Casino.
Johnson said the product lines are limited now, mainly because the state's legal cannabis industry is in its infancy. He expects the store to offer a wider array of products in years to come as Minnesota's new cannabis producers get up and running.
In the meantime, he says the store will serve as an example of how a well-regulated, licensed dispensary works.
"We're proud of what we've been able to build here," Johnson said. "Everything that is generated from our businesses goes back into our communities to help build our government services, for education, health insurance, healthcare we need."
A grand opening celebration is slated for Saturday, June 29, with a green ribbon cutting at 8:30 a.m. That will be followed by food trucks from Trickster Tacos and Misfits Coffee, along with Chez Annalise, BLNCD, White Earth and Slay Beverages, and live music from DJ Austin throughout the day.