March 12, 2025 Planning Commission Meeting Minutes

Call to order:

The Randolph Planning Commission meeting was called to order at 6:00 p.m. by Mayor Marie  Jacob. 

Roll Call:

Present:

• Mayor Marie Jacob

• Council Members Tony Price, and Randy Ferguson. Jacob Friedrich was absent.

• Clerk Mary Haro

• Also, in attendance was Bolton & Menk engineer, Matt Blazer and legal counsel, Greta  Bjerkness and Matthew Ziebarth of LeVander, Gillen & Miller. 

  
  

Approval of Agenda:

Motion to approve the agenda was made by Haro, seconded by Ferguson. All voting in  favor, none opposed, motion passed 4:0. 

New Business

Cannabis Presentation 

Greta introduced us to Matt Ziebarth from her office who gave us a presentation on  cannabis. They would like to know “What does Randolph want to do to regulate Cannabis  in the city.”  

On January 1, 2025 the interim moratorium that we had in place went away but then a law  was passed on January 1, 2024 which legalized adult use cannabis in the state of Minnesota.  The state created a new agency called The Office of Cannabis Management who oversees  licensing of cannabis businesses and all of the rules and regulations related to it.  

There are 13 different license types in the state. They all need to be regulated within our  borders of this state.  

The licenses are generally broken down into two categories: retailer licenses and non retailer licenses. These license types are:  

1. Cannabis microbusiness (commonly known as “seed to sale”). This includes  cultivation, manufacturing, retail, and on-site consumption, which can be at one  location or at multiple locations but is issued to one license-holder.  

2. Cannabis mezzobusiness (larger scale than microbusiness). This includes  cultivation, manufacturing, retail at up to 3 locations and on-site consumption,  issued to one license-holder.  

3. Cannabis cultivator (indoor/outdoor)  

4. Cannabis manufacturer  

5. Cannabis retailer 

6. Cannabis wholesaler  

7. Cannabis transporter  

8. Cannabis testing facility  

9. Cannabis event organizer  

10. Cannabis delivery service  

11. Lower-potency Hemp Edible Manufacturer  

12. Lower-potency hemp edible retailer  

13. Medical Cannabis Combination Business. 

The licensing is done at the state level. Local governments does not grant the business  license. We have some control to implement reasonable time, place and manner  restrictions. We can restrict a business within 1,000 feet of a school, 500 feet of a daycare  and 500 feet of a public park. The business would still have to meet local zoning. They  would apply for a conditional use permit. Local registration is only for retail businesses.  We can delegate our registration to the county. We asked if we don’t delegate our  registration to the county do we have to do the compliance checks. This needs to be  checked. We would be forfeiting the registration fee if we delegate it to the county. Also  we can have an ordinance that if Dakota County currently has retailers that equal 1 per every 12,500 residents in the county then no retailer will be allowed to operate in Randolph.  

Do we want to enact zoning restrictions? Do we want to have additional restrictions on the  businesses and if so what do we want them to be? Do we want to delegate registration to  Dakota County?  

We had the following questions which they are going to check and get back to us:  

1. Will Dakota County do compliance checks if we do not delegate registration to  them?  

2. If we delegate authority to Dakota County can we take it back? 

3. Does Dakota County have zoning regulations and what are they – do they have  buffers?  

Next steps will be for Greta to prepare a memo regarding our questions before our next  meeting and find out how we want to proceed and have an ordinance ready for review and  consideration in May.  

Adjournment

Motion to adjourn the meeting made by Jacob, seconded by Price, the meeting was  adjourned at 6:52 p.m. All voting in favor, none opposed, motion passed 4:0.