Pot in public issue anything but ‘plain and simple’

Let’s start with how Mayor Jim Watson is right.

He’s right to be frustrated over the city’s apparent inability to do anything about the marijuana smoking going on at Buzz On.

It’s a ludicrous set of circumstances that finds the city with the authority to strictly regulate the smoking of tobacco — which is perfectly legal — while simultaneously having its hands tied when it comes to restricting the consumption of a largely illegal substance.

That’s why Watson called this week for the police to crack down on the patrons of the marijuana vapour lounge.

“My belief is it’s an illegal activity and the police should be taking appropriate action if illegal activity is taking place,” Watson told reporters after this week’s council meeting. “If they’re smoking marijuana in a storefront, then it’s illegal.”

The mayor reiterated several times his call for police to charge the folks at Buzz On, and he’s right that police action seems to be the only action anyone can take in the face of this operation that falls between the cracks of vague federal laws and too-specific provincial ones.

But being right isn’t always enough.

Watson’s insistence on police action is a bit tone-deaf on a number of fronts.

First, if the police did round up a bunch of weed smokers with the intention of charging them, it could backfire. Some folks may have licences to possess marijuana for personal medical use. And because the federal law governing medical marijuana currently doesn’t specify that it cannot be smoked in public, those licensed users wouldn’t be breaking any laws. So police would have to be uber-careful about not arresting these law-abiding folks.

(For anyone under the impression that Buzz On is not a public place because it sells memberships, think again. The courts have ruled that almost anywhere other than a private home is a public place, and that includes clubs.)

And what if police did round up a dozen people who each had an illegal joint? What’s the likelihood a judge would throw out those charges? If that happened, it would actually encourage the very activity that Watson is trying to tamp down.

So when Watson says that if illegal pot-smoking is happening, the police should move in, “plain and simple,” it’s anything but.

That’s not to say that police should do nothing, especially if, for instance, there was concern there might be trafficking going on. Chief Charles Bordeleau said the force is keeping an eye on the situation, which is likely the right thing to do at this early stage in our vapour-lounge development.

Because Ottawa is not the first place to find itself with a marijuana lounge. What Watson’s reactionary response fails to acknowledge is the trend of more of these vapour lounges opening.

Whether his reasons are personal or political, the mayor won’t be able to stamp out this emerging issue by sheer force. The strategy hasn’t worked with Uber, the illegal taxi service that seems more popular than ever, which Watson wouldn’t concede was here to stay. (Council has agreed to review the taxi bylaw this term.) The mayor’s refusal to discuss the possibility of the City’s considering a supervisedinjection site, despite evidence that such a site can save lives, falls into the same category of stubborn black-and-white thinking.

Perhaps a better game plan for Watson would be to lay off the call for police action for now while figuring out what to do, like putting in a formal request for the province to widen the scope of the Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which specifically bans tobacco consumption in public areas. (In town Thursday to be recognized as a nation builder by Famous 5 Ottawa, Premier Kathleen Wynne said she was open to changing the laws, if that’s something municipalities want.)

The mayor is right to take the issue of vapour lounges — or supervised injection sites, or Uber, for that matter — seriously. But leadership also means understanding which ways the social winds are blowing and adapting responsibly to reflect those shifts.