Fond du Lac Band opens Minnesota's first cannabis tasting lounge

The Fond du Lac Band has moved Minnesota’s cannabis market into a new phase with the opening of what it calls the state’s first cannabis tasting lounge, a change that matters well beyond the reservation boundary in St. Louis County. The ANANG Tasting Lounge & Dispensary opened to the public on Friday, May 15, at 1440 Black Bear Drive in Carlton, behind and just northeast of Black Bear Casino Resort.

The new space is the second Anang dispensary and expands an operation that had already been built around cultivation and retail. By adding the Dab Theatre, the band is no longer just selling cannabis products. It is building a branded retail experience that combines consumer education, on-site consumption and tribal economic development in one place.

That shift is rooted in the legal framework Minnesota created in 2023, when lawmakers passed adult-use cannabis legislation and established the Office of Cannabis Management. Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize adult-use cannabis, and tribal-state compacts have become the mechanism for sorting out jurisdiction between the state and tribal governments.

Gov. Tim Walz and the Office of Cannabis Management signed a tribal-state cannabis compact with the Fond du Lac Band on Oct. 20, 2025, and the state announced it three days later, on Oct. 23. State officials described Fond du Lac as the fourth tribal nation in Minnesota to enter such an agreement, after White Earth Nation, the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and the Prairie Island Indian Community.

For the Fond du Lac Reservation, the timing matters economically. Earlier reporting on the band’s first ANANG Native Cannabis Co. dispensary said the business created about 15 full-time jobs, with leaders expecting broader benefits for the reservation and the Duluth-Superior region. The new lounge suggests that the band is trying to deepen that economic footprint, not just with sales volume but with a more recognizable retail identity tied to the casino corridor near Carlton and Cloquet.

The band says the Dab Theatre is Minnesota’s first and the first tribally owned Dab Theatre in the United States. In practical terms, that gives consumers in and around St. Louis County a new place to buy and use cannabis under tribal rules, while giving regulators another test case for how on-site consumption fits into Minnesota’s still-forming market. It also raises the stakes for nearby businesses that now face a more developed competitor in a market that is shifting from legalization on paper to storefronts, staffing and customer traffic on the ground.