A once popular but currently vacant North Mankato business building may soon have a buyer. The door for a building sale should be opening now that the North Mankato City Council has changed its city code on the cannabis buffer zone at its Monday meeting.
With a 4-1 vote in favor of changing the ordinance that moves a buffer zone for cannabis businesses from 1,000 to 500 feet from schools, the council paved the way for Tim Tupy, former owner/operator of the Mankato Brewery in North Mankato, to sell his building to a cannabis manufacturer. Tupy was prohibited from selling his building to a prospective buyer who happened to manufacture cannabis because Tupy’s building was located within a zone near a preschool facility.
Mayor Scott Carlson was the only person to vote against the change.
Carlson didn’t necessarily speak against changing the ordinance; rather, he expressed a desire to continue discussion with more public input. “It’s not a clear slam dunk that it (the cannabis manufacturer) will not be a problem,” Carlson said. “I will be open to further discussion.”
A few council members were not persuaded by any potential problems. Council member Billy Steiner reminded his colleagues about how the land is zoned. “It’s an industrial area,” he said.
“I don’t know what more time does for this situation,” Council member Matt Peterson said.
City Attorney Michael Kennedy also shared a reminder about the state’s role in cannabis laws and how they affect the city. Minnesota provides “more restrictions” when it comes to cannabis because the state provides the license for the business to grow and manufacture cannabis.
In addition to a vote on the ordinance change, a public hearing was required. A few city residents spoke at the hearing, though the presentations were not quite as contentious as the discussion between council members.
Council member Sandra Oachs read an email from a resident who raised concerns with odor, noise and water usage of the cannabis manufacturer.
Tupy appeared during the public hearing to address the smells and noise concerns. He said that the growing process in the facility is contained on two levels, both the building as a whole and in individual growing rooms, with each growing room having its own “microclimate” with individual HVAC systems.
Both Tupy and a few council members advocated for the ordinance change for a variety of reasons at the Sept. 21 council meeting, namely that the manufacturer that plans to occupy the building will not have a retail-facing portion of the business. No one could walk off the street into the cannabis manufacturer and make a cannabis purchase, should the manufacturer take ownership of the building.
Council member Matt Peterson also noted during the September discussion of the ordinance that change in Minnesota law on cannabis left local governments scrambling to adjust, and previous leadership chose a more restrictive path, which seemed appropriate at the time. But Peterson noted that Tupy shouldn’t be prohibited from selling his building to a cannabis manufacturer.
This type of city code distinguishing between retail-facing and manufacturing cannabis is already employed in multiple Minnesota cities. Restrictions (or lack thereof) run the gamut in Minnesota. Hutchinson and St. Peter do not have buffer zones for cannabis businesses in their city code at all. Council members wanted to be more open to manufacturers considering Tupy’s plight to sell his building that he owned to operate his business for 13 years. Tupy’s building has been sitting vacant since Mankato Brewery’s last day of business on Jan. 31, 2025.