Clifton, NJ Cannabis Regulations: Dispensary Zoning (2026)

Clifton's zoning code lists cannabis businesses among the uses "deemed inappropriate to the highly urbanized City of Clifton, inimical to the public health, safety, welfare and morals" and bars them from every zoning district the chapter creates. L. 2021, c. 16. That reaches cultivators, manufacturers, wholesalers, distributors, and retailers (dispensaries) alike; there is no district, overlay, or conditional-use path anywhere in the R-A1, R-A2, R-A3, or commercial and industrial schedules that permits a dispensary to locate in Clifton. The prohibition carves out one narrow exception: it does not reach "the delivery of cannabis items and related supplies by a delivery service," so a licensed third-party delivery service may still bring product to a Clifton address even though no cannabis business may open its own storefront, cultivation site, or distribution facility in the city.

1 sits in the same subsection as Clifton's other blanket use bans, including motels, rooming and boarding houses, quarrying, dance halls, and short-term residential rentals of 30 days or less, all of which the Municipal Council applies uniformly across every district rather than zone-by-zone. The section carries an unusually long amendment history stretching from 1981 through an amendment adopted 2-3-2026 by Ordinance No. 8076-26, showing the Council has revisited and kept the cannabis exclusion in place through several rounds of use-regulation updates since the state legalized adult-use cannabis in 2021.