Stearns County, MN Cannabis Regulations: Buffer Zones (2026)

L sets fixed buffer distances for every cannabis business type covered by the ordinance, cultivation, delivery service, event, hemp, manufacturing, medical combination, mezzobusiness, microbusiness, testing facility, transport, retail and wholesale. The setbacks run 1,000 feet from a school, 500 feet from a day care, 500 feet from a residential treatment facility, and 500 feet from an attraction within a public park that is regularly used by minors, including a public ground or athletic field. Each distance is measured in a straight line from the closest point of the cannabis business parcel's property line to the property line of the protected use, not from the building itself, so a large protected parcel or a large cannabis-business lot can push the buffer well beyond the raw distance.

13. A site that clears the district use table but falls inside one of these buffers cannot be approved for a cannabis business, and there is no variance mechanism written into this section itself; relief would have to come through the county's general Board of Adjustment variance process for an unrelated hardship, not the cannabis buffer itself.