Southampton, NY Cannabis Regulations: Buffer Zones (2026)

Southampton Town Code § 330-162.26 sets four separate buffers for a nonmedical cannabis dispensary, and a site on the same road and within any of the first three distances cannot be approved. School grounds carry a 500-foot buffer, defined to reach any public or private preschool, nursery school, elementary or secondary school's property boundary under § 409(2) of the New York State Education Law, including its outdoor grounds and entrances. A second 500-foot buffer covers community facilities, defined to include day care centers, public parks, playgrounds, public swimming pools, libraries, and any center whose primary purpose is recreation or services for children or adolescents.

A 200-foot buffer applies to any building occupied exclusively as a house of worship, though the code specifies that bingo nights, fundraising performances, blood drives, yoga classes and other incidental community uses do not strip a building of that exclusive status. Every one of these three measurements runs in a straight line from the nearest point of the protected use to the center of the nearest entrance of the dispensary, and where an entrance sits back from the sidewalk, the measuring point shifts to where the walkway meets the sidewalk; a corner-lot protected use is treated as fronting both intersecting roads.

Separately, a fourth rule bars any new dispensary within a 1,000-foot radius of another premises for which a nonmedical cannabis dispensary license has been issued, capping how densely the use can cluster along the Town's commercial corridors outside the incorporated villages.