San Luis Obispo County, CA Cannabis Regulations: Dispensary Zoning (2026)

090 of the County Code caps where a cannabis dispensary can operate. Dispensary structures cannot be open to the public for retail sales: only operators holding a Non-Storefront Retailer State license qualify, while a Type 10 Retailer State license is prohibited outright. Mobile retailers that do not operate from a permanent structure are banned entirely. 60, unless another section of the title triggers a Conditional Use Permit instead. Dispensaries sited in the Rural Rural or Rural Lands categories may only dispense cannabis grown on that same site, and dispensaries in the Agriculture category are limited to product grown on site or manufactured from on-site product.

Every application must include a security plan meeting Sheriff's Office guidelines: lighting, security cameras, alarm systems, a secure storage area, at least 90 business days of stored interior and exterior surveillance video, and real-time video access for the Sheriff's Office from a locked, tamper-proof compartment. Location standards bar dispensaries not open to the public from sitting within 600 feet of any pre-school, elementary, junior high, or high school, library, park, playground, recreation or youth center, or licensed drug/alcohol recovery or sober-living facility, measured straight-line from the dispensary structure to the property line of the protected use.

That distance can be reduced below 600 feet only through Conditional Use Permit approval and specific Planning Commission findings under subsection E(2). 140, plus a 50-foot setback from riparian vegetation and a 100-foot setback from wetlands.