Duluth prepares for cannabis industry
DULUTH — City Councilors will take up an ordinance on Tuesday that could shape the face of Duluth's recently legalized cannabis industry for years to come.
The state will oversee the licensing of businesses that handle high-potency cannabis cultivation, manufacturing, transport and sale of the drug. However, local governments retain the right to regulate how many of these businesses may operate within their jurisdictions and where they may be located.
Cities may not entirely block these enterprises, even though a St. Louis County ban on the opening of such businesses will remain in effect until the end of the year.
Come 2025, however, local jurisdictions will need to open their doors to producers and distributors.
For every 12,500 residents, municipalities across the state will be required to allow at least one cannabis operation — meaning Duluth will need to welcome at least six or seven businesses to the community, according to City Planner Jenn Reed-Moses.
She said Duluth proposes to regulate where such operations can be placed, maintaining existing buffers that already govern where liquor and tobacco sales can occur in the vicinity of child care centers, schools and places of worship.
In addition to the buffer restrictions, the city could use its zoning rules to govern where cannabis businesses locate. An ordinance heading to the City Council heading to its first reading on Tuesday would limit these "industrial" operations to areas already zoned for mixed use-business and general industrial facilities.
Retail operations would be limited to places where stores of all sorts are already allowed.
Marijuana-growing operations would be further restricted under the proposed resolution, banning them from community gardens or outdoor urban agricultural operations.
Smaller homegrown plots for personal use would still be allowed.
Reed-Moses said retailers that already sell low-potency marijuana products should be able to continue to do business.
Likewise, craft breweries and distilleries that produce and sell THC-infused beverages would be allowed to maintain their local operations under the new ordinance.
The proposed marijuana ordinance could go to a final vote on Nov. 25.
