Olmsted County amends Environmental Public Health Services ordinance to add cannabis licensing, tobacco variances and a two‑year revocation buffer

Olmsted County commissioners on Aug. 7 approved updates to chapter 3,100 of the county code — the Environmental Public Health Services ordinance — after a public hearing and staff presentation.

The changes, presented by an Olmsted County Public Health associate director identified in the hearing as Chowdhury, add cannabis licensing to the ordinance, allow the public health office to grant variances for tobacco and other environmental-health licenses in certain circumstances, and create a two‑year bar on reapplication following a license revocation.

Chowdhury told commissioners the ordinance “covers a plethora of the licenses that environmental health holds,” including food and beverage, lodging, pools, and the newly added cannabis license type. He said the variance authority would allow staff to “consider situational basis and grant variances from the ordinance as needed” and gave lodging spacing as an example: spacing rules in older state lodging code that required roughly three feet between beds have proven impractical when coordinated with fire and building officials and have been relaxed for facilities such as Dorothy Day through case‑by‑case variance decisions.

The revocation change prevents a person whose license was revoked for ordinance violations from immediately reapplying for a new license at the same business. Chowdhury said the two‑year buffer is intended to prevent repeated applications by the same operator in the same location, which had in the past led to repeated revocations when the same control and issues remained. He said the ordinance is intended to allow bona fide sales where the previous owner truly divests control, but to block cases in which the same individual reopens under a new name while maintaining control.

Commissioners asked several clarifying questions during the hearing. Commissioner Shager requested a concrete example of a variance; Chowdhury used lodging spacing to explain how cooperation with fire and building codes can justify a variance. Another commissioner asked whether the ordinance text references state statute definitions for cannabis products; staff responded that definitions are provided in the county cannabis ordinance and are “pulled from statute.”

After three calls for public comment with no speakers, a commissioner moved to close the hearing and then moved to approve the ordinance changes. The board voiced their approval; the chair declared the motion passed.

The county indicated the ordinance will reference the county’s existing cannabis ordinance for definitions and rely on applicable state statute language for statutory authority, but the public record at the hearing did not cite a specific state statute number.