LET’S OK POT SHOPS
Judging from the enthusiasm of thousands who responded to the city’s recent public consultation, Ottawans are eager for storefront cannabis shops. A more rigorous survey, however, found people split on the question of allowing pot shops.
Still, Ottawa should permit these stores, which will be legal in the province next April.
In just a few days, city council will vote on this question, and there are understandable concerns about where legal cannabis can be sold. The Ontario government has set certain standards in this regard, but under provincial rules, local bylaws and zoning can’t single out purveyors of weed for stricter rules than other commercial storefronts. Some councillors have argued the city should hang tough, opt out of legal sales for now and try to negotiate more flexibility from Queen’s Park. Others suggest not voting at all, so that the province alone is held responsible for the fallout from legal cannabis shops.
Happily, it turns out the city’s voice will not go completely unheard when the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario considers applications for cannabis stores.
For instance, a city staff report notes, the AGCO will provide notice on its website of any application to open a pot shop. It will also give municipalities 15 days for written feedback on whether the store location “is in the public interest, having regard (for) the needs and wishes of the residents.” That’s further ahead than we thought we were.
City staff also suggest some standard “objections” Ottawa should include when providing feedback to the AGCO on a given storefront application. For instance, it would always object if the store were proposed within 150 metres of another cannabis store, to avoid concentration in one neighbourhood, or within 150 metres of a public property being used in ways “analogous” to a school (a library, for instance). It would also red-flag any site local health-care authorities were worried about.
This does not mean the AGCO will agree, but it suggests the province is not tone-deaf to local concerns.
Ontario has presented the opt-in/opt-out choice as a sort of negative-option billing. Municipalities will be considered, by default, to have approved the presence of cannabis stores unless they vote explicitly to disallow them by Jan. 22. There is no stalling on the decision.
Ottawa council should approve the stores
— in part to discourage the illegal market, in part because public health is aboard, but mostly because adults have the right to their own choices about drugs. Our cosmopolitan city doesn’t need a local version of prohibition.