Widespread cannabis dispensaries are one step closer to reality after the Minnesota Legislature at the end of session approved a bill speeding up the process for licensing.

Before the bill passed in the final weekend of the session, a bipartisan House-Senate panel settled on a licensing preapproval process for entrepreneurs to apply without having a retail or business space. People who have faced past harms because of the over-prosecution of marijuana laws, known as “social equity applicants,” also get priority and early approval for those licenses.

However, Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine, the only Republican lawmaker on the joint committee, told MPR News on earlier this week that the lack of a property requirement and shifting from a merit-based to a lottery-based system to award licenses are among his top concerns. West voted against the agreement.

Rep. Nolan West, R-Blaine. (Courtesy of the candidate)

“By that very nature, it’s all minimum standards, and basically, luck of the draw,” West said. “And without a property requirement, it’s very easy for people to game the system, because you can do a lot of applications under a lot of names, especially if you don’t have to have a piece of property attached to each one of those applications.”

Regulators have said the lottery will help get around potential litigation that has slowed the implementation of cannabis business licensing in other states.

Stricter rules

The conference committee did approve stricter rules and anti-predatory language to ensure the people applying for licenses are truly the ones who would run the business, as well as disclosure of each person’s percentage of ownership.

It also added a cap on the number of licenses.

There have been issues in other states that rolled out social equity licenses where those applicants who can’t get enough capital to sustain their business are forced to give up their share to investors — in essence, those larger, richer companies “rent a minority.”

In a use-it-or-lose-it provision, applicants who secure a license don’t have to utilize it for 18 months. That lack of urgency concerns West if Minnesota plans to stick to a timeline of getting the legal marijuana industry up and running in 2025.

An industry in its infancy

Earlier this month, Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville told MPR News the “legalized and regulated industry is in its infancy, and we’re here to continue the work we started last year. Like any new industry, it will not be fully grown on day one. This bill works to ensure a successful market launch and support the industry and Minnesotans involved in this industry as it grows and develops.”

Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville.  (Courtesy of the Minnesota Senate)

Regarding social equity applicants, West is “against the concept as a whole because it’s fundamentally unfair.”

He added, “I do support people who are convicted of a cannabis offense getting special treatment because they got the raw end of the deal. But just saying you live somewhere and you get special treatment — that doesn’t sit right with me.”

West said he was pleased that the definition of social equity applicants now extends to military veterans.

As for being the sole GOP member of the conference committee, West says he was working in “good faith” and likely had “more influence than probably any Republican in the entire Legislature” on marijuana law, but is still disappointed by the lack of inclusion of his caucus’ perspective.

The final bill also includes $2.73 million for the Office of Cannabis Management for product testing and enforcement and provides cannabis patients and their caregivers more freedom around possessing plants.

Related Articles

Hastings seeks PFAS funding after Legislature sinks bonding bill. But why isn’t 3M paying?

Medical aid in dying bill didn’t cross finish line this MN Legislature session

Jennifer Huddleston: AI and privacy rules meant for Big Tech could hurt small businesses most

Bruce Corrie: We have a distinct opportunity in downtown St. Paul

Violent Crime unit teaming BCA agents with local cops to focus on guns, drugs

Without permits, caution or anything to prove except everything, director George Miller shot “Mad Max” in 1977 on some beautifully forlorn stretches of Australian road with an ensemble of eager maniacs activating, and hyperactivating, a tale of a desolate near-future. At one point, a very young Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky, the road warrior-lawman on the edge of insanity, mourns the killing of his boss and comrade. “He was so full of living, you know?” he says, fighting back tears in the super-healthy guy way. “He ran the franchise on it.”

Forty-six years of rough road later, here we are at the fifth “Mad Max” movie. Now 79, Miller remains an action fantasist of the highest order and has become the spiritual if very-much-alive cousin of the eulogized character in his first smash hit. (Its budget was $350,000, roughly $1.5 million in 2024 dollars.) “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” is a prequel to 2015’s lavishly nutty “Mad Max: Fury Road,” and is the work of a director full of living, albeit guided by an ever-darker vision of humankind barreling toward the cliff. He has run the franchise on it.

I’ll try to explain why I’m all over the highway on “Furiosa,” even as I’m recommending it. The best of it is spectacular, tapping into so many different ways to create and assemble images in contemporary big-budget filmmaking, you can barely keep track.

The story belongs to Furiosa, who we meet as a young girl played by Alyla Browne. In the barely human patriarchies of this parched post-apocalypse desert land, only the Vuvalini, aka the Tribe of Many Mothers, living in the Edenic paradise known as the Green Place, point to a better way.

The optimism lasts about 45 seconds in movie terms. Right off, Furiosa is abducted by the snarling, drooling Biker Horde, ruled by Dr. Dementus. This is the major new character; he’s played by Chris Hemsworth, who has most of the screenplay’s verbiage for better or worse. Visually, the character borrows Charlton Heston’s nose, Heston’s “Ben-Hur” chariot (pulled here by three tricked-up motorcycles; the vehicles in the “Mad Max” universe remain unbeatably weird and fantastically convincing), and Heston’s “Ten Commandments” beard.

“Furiosa” is actually pretty light on narrative, as written by director Miller and “Fury Road” co-writer Nick Lathouris. The crafty survival machine of the title meets a series of grueling, generally sadistic circumstances. Both Dementus, a nattering, twisted father figure of a psycho, and his sometime enemy, Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme, taking over for the late Hugh Keays-Byrne) have uses for Furiosa. She knows the location of the Green Place, though the miseries she has survived, painfully, and the rage in her heart, renders her mute for years. Even as a young adult, once Anya Taylor-Joy takes over the role an hour into the picture, Furiosa has little use for words.

There’s world-building aplenty. One fiefdom, The Citadel, resembles a sand-swept Middle-earth, or the Tower of Babel’s ambitious new condo development. Dementus cuts a deal with his enemy and gains control of nearby Gastown. The realms of “Fury Road” and now “Furiosa,” like their “Mad Max” franchise predecessors, run on petroleum (scarce), water (scarcer) and blood (spilling constantly, corpses and vivisected limbs strewn all over the desert).

A chase scene from director George Miller’s “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” (Warner Bros. Pictures)

As gratifyingly different as the “Mad Max” movies have been, at heart Miller is making ever-more-grandiose biker movies, but with more than bikes. “Furiosa” lives and breathes righteous retribution, setting her unblinking sights on the pig-men who killed her mother, and who enslave women as harem chattel.

The new film, rather portentously divided into solemn-sounding chapters, covers many years, which marks a change from previous “Mad Max” sagas. More pertinent to the overall viewing experience (mine, at least), “Furiosa” is the grimmest and most deliberately punishing of Miller’s visions. The occasional stabs at black comedy feel a little off. In this awful if fabulously designed near-future, as Dementus’ resident History Man (George Shevtsov, a wizened Shakespearean fool) asks in voiceover, “how must we brave the cruelties?” The movie provides the two hour, 28 minute answer.

The internal tensions within “Furiosa” fill the screen, even when they can’t resolve their contradictory natures. Miller’s not kidding around. He doesn’t like how humankind mistreats its home or degrades the culture with “ridiculous perversions and witty mutilations.” That phrase is actually heard in voiceover here; it’s Miller, and the franchise, having a little fun with the paradox at the center of the “Mad Max” universe. Cheap thrills, beautifully executed, plus some unsettling food for thought: That’s the idea. Beautifully executed cheap thrills without the “unsettling” part are rare enough.

I’ll see “Furiosa” again for many reasons, none purer or more pleasurable than the peak action vignette, a roughly 15-minute chase involving a tanker truck (aka the War Rig), steroidal dune buggies, motorcycles and para-sailing warriors. It’s a wonder, exceeding even the best of “Fury Road.” To their huge credit, Miller and editors Eliot Knapman and Margaret Sixel keep the longer takes of speeding warriors and their flame-throwing weapons of doom flowing, lucidly, excitingly. Yes, there’s considerably more digital futzing going on in “Furiosa,” compared to “Fury Road” (which was hardly all-analog). But Miller’s passionate artifice and eye for detail — including dreamy, digitally rendered sights such as Dementus’s biker army, swarming as one across the desert — are as good as it gets in modern visual effects.

Chris Hemsworth plays the warlord Dr. Dementus in “Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.” (Jasin Boland/Warner Bros. Pictures)

Is the movie fun? Well, Furiosa’s story doesn’t really welcome that word. It’s gripping, even when it’s a bit of a trudge. Miller’s a visual genius. And a pile-driver. He’s also an adult, with a mature master filmmaker’s sensibility and serious intentions to go with his eternal-adolescent love of speed and noise. Budget estimates for Miller’s latest run between $168 million and $233 million, which is a tad more than the $350,000 “Mad Max” had going for it. But some things do not change. Even amid new depths of misery, “Furiosa” still delivers the clean, electrifying, inches-above-asphalt camera perspectives that made the Cinemascope-shot “Mad Max” so arresting nearly two generations ago.

Even if they’re not their own best screenwriters, some directors just know what they’re doing.

“Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga” — 3 stars (out of 4)

MPA rating: R (for sequences of strong violence, and grisly images)

Running time: 2:28

How to watch: Premieres in theaters May 23

Michael Phillips is a Tribune critic.

Related Articles

‘Bodkin’ review: A true crime podcast descends upon rural Ireland, with mediocre results

Movie review: Marisa Abela’s portrayal of Amy Winehouse is the best thing about ‘Back to Black’

An ode to failure: Some classic movies were flops when they first came out

What to stream: Crank up the adrenaline with these stunt-filled action films

‘The Idea of You’ review: Surviving celebrity

The Timberwolves were rather putrid offensively in the second half of Game 1 of the NBA Western Conference Finals on Wednesday night.

Minnesota scored just 43 points over the final two quarters, including a 3.5-minute scoreless drought at the end of the game that ultimately lost the game.

Over the final two quarters, the Wolves shot 36 percent from the field and 29 percent on three-point attempts. Take away second-chance opportunities, and Minnesota’s shooting percentage declined to 31 percent over the final 24 minutes.

Not good.

Welcome to the club, Timberwolves.

This is what Dallas is doing to folks this postseason.

Since May 8, from Dallas’ Game 2 victory over Oklahoma City in the Western Conference semifinals onward, the Mavericks’ sport the top defensive rating in the playoffs, allowing just 109.9 points per 100 possessions.

Dallas played two of the top four regular-season offenses in the NBA over their first two playoff series.

The Clippers’ offensive rating dipped from 117.9 in the regular season to 109.5 in their first-round loss to Dallas. The number plummeted to 107.9 following Los Angeles’ Game 1 victory.

The Thunder sported the No. 3 offense in the NBA during the regular season, scoring 118.3 points per 100 possessions. Their offensive rating was 111.8 in their conference semifinal loss to Dallas, and it was 109.7 in Games 2 through 6.

Dallas currently touts a defense that has proving itself capable of significantly slowing any offense in the NBA. The defense has been what has carried the Mavericks to this point — three wins away from the NBA Finals.

And the brain behind it hails from St. Paul.

Mavericks assistant coach Sean Sweeney is the team’s defensive coordinator, and year after year cements himself as one of the NBA’s elite defensive minds.

“He does all the schemes. He does the scouting for defense. … He talks to us,” Mavericks star Luka Doncic said. “Since the day he came here, he’s been a great addition to this team. So I’m really happy that he’s on our team, and he helps us a lot.”

The Cretin-Derham Hall and University of St. Thomas graduate has especially had the Mavericks on a string since the trade deadline, when Dallas acquired shot-blocking big man Daniel Gafford and versatile wing P.J. Washington, both of whom have been inserted into the starting lineup. Whenever the Mavericks make such a move, Sweeney starts with head coach Jason Kidd’s plan for how he wants to play defense and looks for the ways in which the new acquisitions can aid in that effort.

“PJ is a very versatile, athletic defender. Good intelligence, good instincts. Daniel is obviously excellent at protecting the rim, does a good job in the pick and rolls, and has a presence to him that allows you to use the strengths of the guys on the team,” Sweeney said. “And they fit in really, really well. I think both are intelligent players, so that helps when you change teams, being able to pick up schemes quickly. And they both have a commitment to working and studying, so that helps speed up the process. You can’t skip steps, but the more time you put in, the quicker you can take them. So those guys have done a great job with that.”

After that deal, Dallas touted the No. 8 defense in the NBA. That’s a level likely thought not possible to reach by many considering the Mavericks’ two best players — Kyrie Irving and Doncic — are far from defensive stalwarts. But everyone, Sweeney noted, has strengths. And Doncic and Irving have a competitiveness that they weaponize on the defensive end, on top of their high basketball intellect.

“Those two guys have showed — both over the course of the season and in the playoffs — what some of those strengths are,” Sweeney said. “Both are good steals guys, both are good communicators, and they have a high level of awareness. And as they have picked up their level of intensity and awareness, I think you’ve seen that on the floor.”

The collective buy-in of players new and old has led not only to a successful season, but one Sweeney has thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish.

“As it pertains to after the (trade) deadline, after the all-star break, to see the way these guys have played and how they’ve done things together, sacrificing when they’ve had to and being willing to do things for one another when it may not necessarily benefit you is really enjoyable as a coach to see guys perform that way,” Sweeney said. “It’s been a fun group to teach, compete with and also learn from.”

This series hits a new level of enjoyment for Sweeney, because it started in his home state. He loves returning to Minnesota — and, specifically, the Twin Cities — whenever possible. Getting to coaching in the West Finals for the second time in three years, and this time against the team he grew up watching, is an experience he is savoring.

But, yes, it’s also a challenge. Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards has been the rockstar of the NBA playoffs. Karl-Anthony Towns was wonderful against Denver. Mike Conley and Rudy Gobert are two of the highest IQ players you’ll find. Minnesota is no easy scout. That, Sweeney noted, is the fun part.

“The great part about the NBA is you get to coach and compete against the best players and the best coaches. Regardless of what your role is, this is the best time of the year. This is the highest level of competition, when the pressure is the greatest,” he said. “It just makes the preparation piece that much more enjoyable. Getting ready for great players, coaches who have great schemes and the ability to adjust and get ahead. So it makes it a lot of fun.”

Of course, it’s all the more fun when you’re having the type of success the Mavericks are at the moment. They have a chance to take a commanding 2-0 series lead in Game 2 on Friday in Minneapolis. Claiming another road win would likely require another dominant defensive performance. Dallas is turning those out with regularity this postseason.

The playoffs are all about adjustments, schematics and drilling into the finer details of gameplans. Perhaps no one does that more than Sweeney, which could explain why the Mavericks have taken yet another defensive leap in these playoffs to date.

“Sean’s work ethic is like no other. He’s always in the gym, he’s always there to help,” Kidd said. “To have Sean as an assistant coach, his future is extremely bright. He’ll be a head coach in this league some day.”

For now, though, Sweeney is locked in on spending every waking hour trying to help the Mavericks win a title. And, at the moment, there are a lot of waking hours.

Just how much sleep is the coach getting at the moment, anyway?

“Ha. Uhh, the requisite amount,” Sweeney said.

Which is what?

“Enough to prepare,” Sweeney said.

Alright, honest answer time.

“Man, none,” Sweeney admitted. “Nah, this is what makes it fun is there’s so much you can study and prepare for. So now it’s time to put the plan in place and get ready to go.”

Related Articles

Dane Mizutani: Anthony Edwards is the best player on the Timberwolves. They need him to play like it.

Luka Doncic carries Dallas past the Wolves late to steal Game 1 in Minnesota

Anthony Edwards gets big contract value boost with second-team All-NBA recognition

Minnesota goes all-in on Anthony Edwards’ ‘Bring ya a**’ slogan

Don’t have tickets to Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals? Timberwolves hosting a block party outside the arena