Deputy Director of Public Services Teresa Mitchell and Assistant City Attorney Justin Hagel presented before the General Government and Policy Committee of the Whole on Dakota County’s Cannabis Retail Ordinance.
Similar to county tobacco and liquor laws, the county is responsible for creating a cannabis retail ordinance for the municipalities within the county that don’t want to create their own ordinance. For Dakota County in practice, that means that Dakota County’s upcoming ordinance will only affect some of its smallest communities like townships because larger cities like Eagan, Lakeville and Hastings have already created their own cannabis ordinances.
When going about crafting a cannabis retail ordinance for the county, commissioners and staff have taken many queues from existing tobacco and liquor ordinances. For example, the proposed compliance checks for cannabis retailers aligns with the county’s tobacco policy to include both preliminary compliance checks including meeting local zoning ordinances along with annual unannounced age-verification compliance checks done by the sheriff. Additionally, the county board will review and approve cannabis licenses in the same way it does for tobacco and liquor licenses.
While smaller communities are able to look to the county to develop an ordinance for them due to any number of reasons from lack of funds to lack of expertise to lack of interest, at any time they are able to opt out of the county’s ordinance and create their own, even after the county’s ordinance is finalized. Chair Mike Slavik pointed out that despite cities’ ability to opt out at any time, as full-time policymakers, the county has more resources to develop an ordinance that best fits the area.
The commissioners were clear, however, on their distaste for creating a cannabis retail ordinance at all: “Why are we even doing this?” asked Commissioner Mary Liz Holberg at several points throughout the county’s hour-long preliminary discussion of the ordinance.
“To be clear, they became legal by accident, by a misinterpretation of state law that didn’t get caught, and so this was not a proactive policy decision that was made at the state level,” said Commissioner Laurie Halverson, referencing the 2022 bill H.F. 3595 “A bill for an act relating to health; providing for the regulation of certain products containing cannabinoids,” that was rolled into a larger finance bill and signed in June of that year. The bill left lawmakers, including many of those who signed it, unsure of what they had just passed.
“It’s a bad law, but it’s the hand we’ve been dealt,” said Commissioner Liz Workman.
In crafting a local ordinance, that ordinance is restricted in how it can limit the sale of cannabis products, only able to “enact an ordinance that governs the time, place, and manner restrictions for cannabis and lower-potency hemp,” according to Mitchell.
Mitchell and Hagel presented several recommendations to the board ranging from classifying lower-potency hemp the same as adult-use cannabis, limiting the number of adult-use cannabis retail registrations issued by the county, and standards for temporary cannabis events.

Lower-potency hemp vs. adult-use cannabis
As to the difference between lower-potency hemp and adult-use cannabis produce, the distinction that bamboozled lawmakers in 2022: “It’s really where the origin of the substance is coming from,” said Hagel. While both products can contain psychoactive properties, cannabis products come from the cannabis plant, while lower-potency hemp products don’t, including coming from various artificial sources.
“They have similar effects, but they’re chemically different,” said Hagel.
The county moved forward with classifying both under the new cannabis policy.

Limiting retail registration
According to state law, cities must allow at least one cannabis retailer per every 12,500 residents. When it comes to the county taking over this process, often for small communities, there is some ambiguity over whether each community must allow one retailer per community or whether it can use the total population of Dakota County and count retailers against that number.
“There is open interpretation whether or not each individual township would be required to have a cannabis retail operation, but if they are all coming to the county for regulation and for combining all of that population under one roof, then it might just be one cannabis retail operation licensed by Dakota County that is governing all of the unorganized or unappreciated townships in the area,” said Hagel.
In order to stop each township from accepting at least one retailer, the commissioners moved forward with the language, “If Dakota County has one active cannabis retail business registration for every 12,500 residents, Dakota County shall not be required to register additional state-licensed cannabis retail businesses.”

Cannabis events
In creating a cannabis ordinance for the county, commissioners also must structure policy for temporary cannabis events. Again, the board was open in their distaste of the requirement, asking if they could outright ban temporary events, due to simply not wanting to have them.
“As litigator here, I’d prefer not to find out in a lawsuit,” said Hagel.
Instead, much of the conversation on fees, penalties, and assemblage permits focused on making the events “as tight as possible,” said Holberg.
The restrictions discussed at the meeting towards making cannabis events regulated included cutting the hours they are allowed, not allowing on-site consumption, not being able to hold temporary cannabis events on county property, increasing penalties and liability insurance minimums, and limiting the duration of the event down to two days from four.
For those fee schedules, the board moved forward with “whatever the number is that’s as high as possible without potentially causing litigation,” said Chair Mike Slavik.

Next steps
The Tuesday meeting was purely informational, meant for county staff to get a clearer view as to what the commissioners were looking for in a county ordinance. Overwhelmingly, that view has not been particularly friendly, if not outright hostile, towards cannabis and hemp products in Dakota County, at least where the Dakota County Retail Cannabis Ordinance is in effect.
The next steps for the creation of Dakota County’s Cannabis Retail Ordinance include a March 22 meeting with the Township Officers Association to hear from many of the communities that have looked to Dakota County for this ordinance. Other steps are not yet scheduled but include further presentations to refine an ordinance draft at future General Government and Policy Committee of the Whole meetings, presenting a draft ordinance to the county board, and a public hearing on the ordinance before it can be approved by the board.