Tuesday’s much-anticipated lottery to narrow the number of applicants for a cannabis license in Minnesota has been put on hold.

At least 10 applicants filed lawsuits against the Office of Cannabis Management (OCM), accusing the state of inappropriately rejecting applicants.

OCM says only about a third of the 1,820 applicants had advanced to the social equity lottery round, which was scheduled for Tuesday.

But Judge Stephen Smith said it’s not happening.

“There’s no lottery tomorrow,” the judge said at the end of the roughly hour-long hearing Monday morning.

Judge Smith issued a stay on the lottery to give all parties time to argue the case to an appellate court.

Sam Milstein was one of the 10 rejected applicants who sued to stop the lottery from happening.

“It’s disheartening,” he said. “It felt like a lot of the work that we’ve done so far was kind of tossed out the window by the OCM.”

Milstein received an email last week from OCM saying his application was denied, but no other information was provided.

His attorneys at North Star Law said that’s one of the main frustrations from applicants that were denied.

“This is a problem that OCM created by setting up a failed review process with no ability for recourse,” said Jen Randolph Reise with North Star Law.

Reise said ever since the denials were sent last week, her office has been slammed with phone calls from potential clients seeking some type of recourse.

OCM declined an on camera interview after Monday’s hearing.

In a statement, the office said it’s disappointed but that “we stand by the process used to review applications” that “allowed us to identify and prevent bad actors from entering the system.”

The recreational cannabis industry in Minnesota was set to begin sometime in the first quarter of 2025. It’s unclear how the delayed lottery will impact the rollout.