Illegal pot dispensaries operating with no rules
Vancouver bylaws include licensing, zoning, security and age restrictions
For nearly two decades, Tom Ramsay has operated an adult-video shop on Bank Street under city regulations that govern everything from what warning signs must be posted at the entrance to which portion of a woman’s breast can be displayed on a poster in the front window (nipples are OK, areolas aren’t).
Ramsay accepts the rules as part of doing business. But he’s not pleased that a cannabis “dispensary” that opened this week down the hall operates free of restrictions.
That’s not surprising, perhaps, since none of the city’s many licensing and zoning bylaws have provisions for stores that illegally sell marijuana.
Ramsay says the Green Tree Medical Dispensary, a marijuana store, is a great addition to the “redlight” district on the second floor of the Bank Street building that houses his One in Ten video store, a massage parlour and a bong shop, but fair is fair: “You have to have control. Why should they get free rein and I have to obey bylaws?”
It’s a question that Ottawa councillors are pondering as debate begins on whether the city should try to control pot shops with licensing and zoning bylaws, an approach pioneered in Vancouver.
Ottawa police say they are monitoring Green Tree and seven other marijuana dispensaries in town.
Mark Kaluski, chair of the Quartier Vanier Business Improvement Area, says he can’t understand why police don’t shut them down. “To be so bold as to open a store and self-designate that you can dispense (pot) to whomever you choose is unfathomable to me,” he said. “If I opened a store that dispensed OxyContin, how quickly would I be shut down?”
The city should at least adopt regulations to limit the number of stores that congregate in one area, Kaluski says. Vanier residents don’t want Montreal Road to turn into “pot row,” he says. There are already two marijuana dispensaries and three bong shops on the strip. That makes it harder to attract desirable businesses like coffee shops and boutiques, he says.
On downtown Bank Street, where two dispensaries operate within a block of each other, the executive director of the Bank Street BIA says the city “should be taking the ball and dealing with this issue now.” The dispensaries will be harder to get rid of once they are established, warns Christine Leadman. “They are getting their foot in the door at these locations. Once they are there, they could be grandfathered in if bylaws are adopted later.”
Responsible landlords won’t rent space to an illegal business, Leadman says, but there’s not much the BIA can do to prevent it. City bylaws could at least control such things as ventilation, she says. A resident who lives above one of the shops has complained to her about the fumes. “Who wants to be subjected to the smell?”
Several councillors have asked city staff to provide information about regulating the dispensaries. But Coun. Jeff Leiper cautions that the city should not rush into anything. It’s difficult to know what to regulate until the federal government legalizes marijuana, he points out. It’s not known if the federal law will even allow pot to be sold in stores.
Municipalities across Canada are struggling with the same issues. An estimated 350 dispensaries are operating across the country. Most say they cater to medical marijuana patients, but they range from “profiteering pot shops that have popped up, to some that provide excellent education and patient care,” says Hilary Black, who helped found Vancouver’s oldest “compassion club” and now works with a medical marijuana producer licensed by Health Canada.
Cities can regulate such things as location and signage, Black notes. “But there’s this major gap. Where there’s no regulations (now) are around the actual product.”
Until the federal government enacts regulations for both medical and recreational marijuana, “we’re going to continue with a really big mess,” she says. “We need some cohesive federal regulations, rather than cities being out on their own, trying to decide what to do.”
The federal government has promised legislation to legalize recreational marijuana next spring. New federal medical marijuana regulations are expected in late August after a court ruled the current rules, which allow patients to obtain pot by mail from producers licensed by Health Canada, violated charter rights.
Into that legal haze some cities have now stepped.
Vancouver was the first to adopt municipal licensing and zoning bylaws to control the shops. The city ignored warnings from thenConservative health minister Rona Ambrose against regulating an illegal industry.
Councillors said they had little choice, given the proliferation of dispensaries and the decision by Vancouver police that enforcing drug laws against the shops was not a priority.
The Vancouver bylaws adopted in June 2015 prohibit dispensaries from opening within 300 metres of schools, community centres or other marijuana businesses. Dispensary operators must have a security alarm and video cameras at entrances and exits, get police checks for all employees and prevent minors from entering. They are prohibited from selling food such as cannabis cookies and brownies.
The Vancouver experience illustrates how difficult it can be to regulate the shops. A flood of 176 businesses applied for licences ($30,000 for businesses, $1,000 for non-profit compassion clubs). A year later, only two dispensaries have been licensed, according to statistics provided by the city. Another 34 applications are winding their way through the three-stage process. The vast majority of applications were denied at the first stage, and several dozen dispensaries have filed appeals that will be heard throughout the rest of 2016. About 33 dispensaries closed voluntarily, but another 54 simply ignored orders to shut down, while fines against them pile up.
Several other B.C. municipalities are also considering regulations. In Nanaimo, where dispensaries have been raided by the RCMP, Mayor Bill McKay said licensing would only grant dispensaries legitimacy.
“We wouldn’t offer a house of prostitution a business licence in Nanaimo, so why would we do this?” he told the Nanaimo News Bulletin. “Both activities are illegal.”
In Toronto, nearly 50 dispensaries have been raided by police, and employees charged with drug trafficking. But licensing is also on the radar, with a city committee set to debate the topic this fall.
The operators of many dispensaries say they welcome municipal regulations because they want to operate as legitimate businesses.
A coalition representing Toronto medical-marijuana dispensaries has asked the city to adopt “safe and appropriate” regulations to help protect the public health, restrict access to minors and curtail the black market, says coalition spokesman Michael McLellan. They prefer the less-stringent regulations proposed in Victoria, which allow for the sale of edible marijuana products and set the distance requirements from schools and other dispensaries at 200 metres.
Most of the dispensaries sell high-quality medical cannabis, and some patients benefit more from the edible products, says McLellan. The shorter distance requirement would ensure that the sick — some in wheelchairs and on crutches — can reach a dispensary, he says.
Don Briere, owner of the crosscountry Weeds dispensary chain, says “reasonable” regulations would be “fabulous.” But he points out that most municipalities don’t prohibit bars and licensed restaurants from operating next to each other, and alcohol does a lot more harm than marijuana.
The operator of Ottawa’s first dispensary, Ottawa Medical Dispensary, on Carling Avenue, says city regulations would clarify where businesses can be set up and help quell any impression that the emerging marijuana industry is a “free-for-all.”
Franco Vigile says he’s worked hard to self-regulate his business, ensuring that only medical-marijuana patients are served, staff are educated on the medical benefits of marijuana and there is stringent security in place. He’s opening a new dispensary in Stittsville soon.
“There are ones of us that are doing things properly, with full regard for public health and safety, and trying to make a legitimate business out of it and trying to help a lot of people. And there are the ones that maybe aren’t doing that,” he says.
We need some cohesive federal regulations, rather than cities being out on their own, trying to decide what to do.