The mayor of Winnebago, Minnesota, and his son were arrested on Thursday after being linked to multiple commercial-grade greenhouses being used to grow illegal quantities of cannabis, the Fairmont Sentinel reports.
According to court documents, multiple law enforcement agencies launched a cooperative investigation into the grow sites in January 2023 after the South Central Drug Investigative Unit received an anonymous tip in that greenhouses in Winnebago were being used to grow cannabis plants.
Adult-use cannabis is legal in Minnesota and residents aged 21+ are allowed to grow their own cannabis plants at home — but there is a limit of eight plants, with a maximum of four flowering at once, per household. Police reported discovering about 240 cannabis plants between multiple properties linked to the father-son duo, who were taken into custody on Thursday, the report said.
FOX 9 reports that Mayor Scott Robertson (67) and Jacob Robertson (46) were each charged with the unlawful cultivation of cannabis and have admitted their involvement to investigators, and said that they were the only people involved in the operation. The men were also reported to have posted bail and gotten out of jail as of Sunday.
Mayor Robertson was in the second year of a two-year term as Winnebago’s mayor after winning a write-in vote in 2021.
Minnesota’s cannabis legalization law took effect last year on August 1, and the state’s regulated cannabis sales are expected to launch sometime next year.
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