St. Louis County, MN Cannabis Regulations: Dispensary Zoning (2026)

Section 7.A of Ordinance 68 lists the retail-facing uses allowed only in COM districts under a land-use permit issued by the St. Louis County Department of Planning and Zoning: retail operations of a cannabis microbusiness or mezzobusiness with a retail endorsement, a standalone cannabis retailer, a cannabis event organizer (including cannabis events), a medical cannabis combination business, and a lower-potency hemp edible retailer. Section 7.B lists the production and distribution uses confined to LI districts under a performance-standard permit: non-retail microbusiness and mezzobusiness operations, a cannabis microbusiness or mezzobusiness without a retail endorsement, a cultivator, manufacturer, wholesaler, transporter, testing facility, delivery service, and lower-potency hemp edible manufacturer or wholesaler. Both subsections state the use is 'not allowed in all other districts established by St. Louis County's Zoning Ordinance,' Ordinance Number 62, so a parcel zoned residential, agricultural, or shoreland cannot host any cannabis business regardless of buffer distance.

Section 7.C separately forecloses the home-business route: no cannabis business or hemp business may operate as a 'home business' or 'home occupation' as those terms are defined in the county Zoning Ordinance, closing off a common small-business workaround. Section 2 confines all of this to land where the county itself exercises planning and zoning authority, meaning the unincorporated county and townships without their own zoning controls; Duluth, Hibbing, Virginia, Eveleth, and the county's other incorporated cities zone cannabis businesses under their own municipal codes.