La Plata County, CO Cannabis Regulations: Buffer Zones (2026)

The buffers sit in section 73-14 of the La Plata County Code, the marijuana section of the standards for specific uses adopted by the Board of County Commissioners. Subsection II.E applies the setbacks to all facilities associated with a marijuana facility or personal marijuana cultivation. Three distances are printed. From the property lines of any public or private preschool, elementary school, middle school, junior high school, or high school, including any kindergarten program those schools operate, the setback is 1,000 feet. From the property lines of the campus of any college, university, or seminary, or of any childcare facility, it is 500 feet. From the property lines of a drug or alcohol rehabilitation treatment center it is also 500 feet.

Subsection II.F sets the measuring rule. The distance runs in a direct line from the closest point of the physical marijuana facility to the closest point of the property line where the protected use sits, so a road route or a walking path does not matter. The setback applies regardless whether the protected use is inside or outside the unincorporated boundaries of the county, which means a school in a neighboring municipality still counts. A marijuana testing facility is exempt from the proximity restriction.

Subsection II.G protects operators who were there first. If one of the protected uses later moves next to a legally established marijuana facility, the facility can expand or be modified through the applicable process, provided it was a legally established land use that preceded the encroaching use.

Most of the county outside the Animas Valley is unzoned, so these buffers apply through the Land Use Code itself rather than through a zone district. Inside the Animas Valley Land Use Plan Area, section 65 requires marijuana facilities to meet both its standards and section 73-14, and the stricter standard controls if the two conflict. The buffers stack with the other section 73-14 rules, including the bar on locating a marijuana facility in a dwelling unit and the separate three (3) mile distances from Ignacio and Bayfield.