City needs to get ready for private pot stores: Watson

The city needs to begin consultations on the new province’s new pot store scheme this fall to prepare the next council for decisions on the future of retail cannabis in Ottawa, Mayor Jim Watson said Thursday.

Watson, speaking to reporters at a re-election campaign event on Island Park Drive, said he has been working on a proposal for council to consider during a meeting Wednesday.

“We’ll have something at the next council meeting that will give direction to staff to come back with a public consultation program, as well as some documentation, as much information as we have, that we can give to the public in terms of what our role and responsibility will be,” Watson said.

The goal would be to equip the next council with enough information and feedback to make relatively quick decisions on cannabis stores, such as where the city would allow them to operate.

The municipal election is Oct. 22 and the next term of council begins Dec. 1.

Cannabis will be legal in Canada on Oct. 17. In Ontario, people can start ordering cannabis online through the province’s Ontario Cannabis Store on that date, but private storefronts won’t be allowed until April 1, 2019.

The new city council will have a short turnaround to make decisions on cannabis stores. Staff will need the time to prepare for planning and bylaw impacts.

There’s already a team of staff at city hall working on cannabis specific issues that come with legalization, but its efforts have likely gone up in smoke since the new Ontario Progressive Conservative government decided to allow private cannabis retailers. The previous Liberal government was planning to use an online and storefront distribution system run solely by the province.

The PC government is giving municipal councils the choice, during an unspecified window of opportunity, to allow private retailers or none at all within their boundaries.

Watson said Ottawa shouldn’t ban cannabis retailers, especially since the product would be available in the area anyway.

“I don’t think that’s realistic,” he said. “If we were to opt out, we’d have this patchwork quilt where you can go over to Gatineau in another province, you can go to Beckwith Township if they set one up on the border. The reality is, whether you like it or not, as of October cannabis is legal.

“We have to come up with a game plan that will actually allow people to purchase this soon-to-be-legal product, but at the same time put in some provisions … that we don’t have easy access for high school students or elementary school students to pick up marijuana next door to their school.”

Watson is in favour of restrictions that would create separation distances between schools and cannabis stores.