Cannabis dispensaries won’t open in Minneapolis until 2025. However, the city took a major regulatory step Thursday by adopting a set of zoning rules that will apply to sellers, growers and other cannabis-related businesses.

The regulations do not impose a distance restriction between individual cannabis dispensaries.

Council member Aurin Chowdhury offered the amendment eliminating a proposed 300-foot buffer between dispensaries. She said she wants to make sure local business owners — who have already opened low-potency cannabis shops and want to become dispensaries — aren’t pushed out by someone who gets their first license and is in that buffer zone.

Council member Katie Cashman said she doesn’t want out-of-state businesses to “gobble up existing spaces” at the expense of the city’s more than 500 existing cannabis merchants who may want to venture into the dispensary business.

“Also note for people who are concerned about a dispensary congregation,” Chowhdury added. “I will say that those are already built into this ordinance, including the 300-foot buffer from K to 12 schools.”

Chowdhury said the change is in accordance with regulations adopted by the city of St. Paul earlier this week.

But that didn’t sit well with at least one council member.

“I’m not sure that St. Paul is the best role model for us,” added board member Linea Palmisano. “I guess I’m a little more skeptical about the opening up of all the areas that this does to new cannabis permits than others.”

Palmisano said she is concerned that the clustering of cannabis businesses could affect those in other parts of the city. The council member said he preferred a more measured approach.

“We have a big responsibility here to tread carefully because we’re never going to be able to go back and dezone some of these places,” she said.

Palmisano also said he doesn’t understand why the regulations shortened the buffer between dispensaries and schools from 500 to 300 feet.

Chowdhury responded that there is currently a 300-foot buffer between K-12 schools and liquor stores. She said she wants the history of cannabis criminalization to inform the zoning process as the city ushers in a new era of recreational marijuana.

“Legalization is part of fixing that harmful legacy, especially for people who are incarcerated for low-level drug offenses, and the way cannabis has been perceived in our country,” Chowhdury said. “Having a greater restriction on distancing from schools, from liquor stores, felt like a way of saying one was more moral than the other, and that was discussed in the planning commission.”

She added that the city should vocally support state laws to keep cannabis out of the hands of children.

The city’s zoning regulations also prohibit outdoor advertising of cannabis products.

“Leaders across local government have worked for years to establish an inclusive, fair and thoughtful approach to recreational cannabis in Minneapolis,” Mayor Frey said in a statement. “This ordinance is an important piece of the overall framework we’re putting in place to make sure legalization works for everyone.”

MPR News reporter Cari Spencer contributed to this story.