Merced, CA Cannabis Regulations: Dispensary Zoning (2026)

170 of the Merced Municipal Code requires every commercial cannabis business, including dispensaries, cultivators, manufacturers, testing labs, and distributors, to obtain a commercial cannabis business permit before operating, on top of complying with the underlying zoning ordinance. 44-1 lists which of the eight allowed commercial zones (C-C, C-O, C-G, C-N, C-T, B-P, I-L) permit dispensaries; only the I-H heavy industrial zone is closed to them, and commercial cannabis activity of any kind is expressly prohibited outside the zones listed in the table. Footnote 1 caps the total at five dispensaries operating within Merced city limits at any one time, combining medical and adult-use retail, and requires that at least one of those five also carry medicinal cannabis goods.

Footnote 2 bans dispensaries entirely from the City Center area, defined as the blocks between 19th and 16th Streets and O Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, including properties fronting either side of those streets. Footnote 5 layers on a buffer requirement: no dispensary may sit within 1,000 feet of a school, or within 600 feet of a day care center, youth center, library, or public park that already exists when the permit application is filed, while cultivation, manufacturing, testing, and other cannabis facilities face the same 600-foot buffer from those youth-oriented uses.

Cultivation greenhouses, non-volatile and volatile manufacturing, and freight/transport distribution are confined to the B-P, I-L, and I-H zones under the table, with freight/transport further limited to C-G zones meeting additional standards in subsection (K)(10).