Luverne business owner Jen Wipf is asking Rock County Commissioners to change their year-long moratorium on the sale of hemp-derived THC food and beverage.
She opened her Rock River Apothecary store in Luverne last year.
Since the county’s moratorium went into place in July, Wipf said she’s lost 50 percent of her hemp product business from the Luverne location.
She would like to be grandfathered into the new law in order to prevent her business from failure.
“I think there’s definitely a common-sense solution,” Wipf said. “We sell tobacco and alcohol so there has to be a solution to this. I think we can work together.”
The city of Luverne adopted a similar moratorium on THC sales Aug. 9.
An upcoming Luverne city-county liaison committee meeting will focus on the issue of THC food and beverage sales.
Commissioners passed the moratorium at their July 19 meeting in response to the state’s legalizing the sale of tetrahydrocannabinol, which began July 1. The state’s focus was on legalizing the use of the hemp-derived Delta 9.
The new state law caught business owners and municipalities by surprise. The state did not provide guidance on how the new law would be enforced.
Wipf discussed her compliance to the federal hemp act of 2018, the purchase of tested product only and how her customers have come to rely on her for a more natural and balanced control of pain, sleeplessness and anxiety.
“I am a rule follower,” Wipf said, adding the majority of her customers don’t like the potency of Delta 9, preferring the milder form of THC, Delta 8.
However, the commissioners’ focus is on public safety, and the board won’t change the moratorium until more rules and regulations are put into place.
“The reality is that not everyone out there is thinking about selling Delta 9 the same way you are,” said county attorney Jeff Haubrich.
“We can have Delta 9 gummies sold at every store in town, but I don’t think that’s what everybody wants. It’s not going to be used for health issues — it is a way to get dope out there and that’s what it is.”