Palm Springs, CA Cannabis Regulations: Buffer Zones (2026)

15(C) governs where cannabis businesses can locate relative to each other and to sensitive uses. Every distance is measured in a straight line, without regard to intervening structures, from the nearest property line of the cannabis facility to the nearest property line of the protected use. Cannabis Dispensaries and Cannabis Lounges must sit at least 500 feet apart from each other, though that requirement drops for facilities located in a Cannabis Overlay Zone or for a dispensary and lounge under single ownership operating from a single street address.

Cannabis Cultivation Facilities and Type 6/Type 7 state-licensed Cannabis Manufacturing Facilities must keep at least 1,000 feet from any lot in a residential zone district. All Cannabis Facilities, regardless of type, must keep a 600-foot separation from a school, public playground, public park, day care or childcare center, or youth center. 01(B); the buffers are not absolute. Facilities that were lawfully operating, or that already held all entitlements to operate, as of the ordinance's effective date are grandfathered out of the current separation standards but remain bound by whatever separation requirements applied when their permits and entitlements were secured.

Those grandfathered facilities still count toward the mandatory separation calculation for any new cannabis facility seeking approval nearby, so an existing dispensary or cultivation site cannot be ignored when siting a new one.