Saint Paul, MN Cannabis Regulations: Dispensary Zoning (2026)

Sec. 511 of the zoning code lays out the standards a cannabis retail business must meet to operate in Saint Paul, independent of the section's separate 300-foot school buffer. Standard (a) requires a conditional use permit for any new construction covering more than 15,000 square feet of land, in every zoning district except industrial ones, specifically to let the planning commission evaluate size and design compatibility with the surrounding location before a large-format cannabis retail building goes up. Standard (c) is a security mandate: cannabis retailers must install and operate a closed-circuit television surveillance system running twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, that visually records all sales areas as well as every point of entry and exit, a continuous-recording requirement with no exception for smaller retailers.

Standard (d) addresses co-location: a cannabis retail use is flatly prohibited from sharing a common entrance with any business separately licensed as a tobacco products shop, keeping the two heavily regulated retail categories physically separated even when they sit in the same building or strip center. These standards were added by Ordinance 24-21 on September 18, 2024, the same ordinance that created Saint Paul's cannabis retail zoning use category following state legalization, and they apply on top of, not instead of, the section's school-distance buffer and any underlying district's own use permissions.