Kamloops pot store gets licence approval
Decision on eve of federal legalization to follow report gathering public input
Licence approval for B.C.’s first government recreational cannabis store hinges on a decision by Kamloops city council at a meeting less than 10 hours before Oct. 17 legalization.
Six months before that date, council received a staff report on potential locations for nonmedical cannabis stores, and a few weeks later approved a bylaw amendment allowing the shops.
In July, the B.C. government announced that Kamloops would be home to the first provincially owned B.C. Cannabis Store, a 3,000-sq.-ft space in a shopping centre.
The ink on the store’s business licence will still be drying when it opens at 10 a.m. on Oct. 17.
“It’s definitely last-minute, because the province hasn’t had their regulations up and running for very long,” said Rod Martin, manager of planning and development for the city.
“Everything has been rushed to try and work toward that Oct. 17 date, but we’ve always been looking at it as trying to get legal ones up and running as quickly as we can so that we can get a safe, regulated supply on-stream and deal with the illegal ones that we had.”
Next month, council will receive a report from city staff containing feedback from residents and during its 2 p.m. meeting on Oct. 16 will decide whether to issue a resolution in support of the licence.
Martin said the city has worked closely with the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch since day one and invested a “significant amount of staff time” in order to be ready in time.
He doesn’t anticipate any lastminute surprises Oct. 16.
“Unless something really goes sideways with it, we’re expecting that it should go through because it’s in compliance with all of our regulations,” he said.
The city approved cannabis retail sales in four business and commercial zones following a public hearing on May 8.
The stores must be at least 150 metres away from any school zones and at least 100 metres away from other stores.
Mayor Ken Christian said that with all the province and city’s due diligence, and the potential for jobs with good wages at the new store, he has little doubt council will approve the licence on Oct. 16.
“I’m kind of surprised that it’s coming right on the eve of the (legalization) legislation date, but I guess there’s a lot of stuff to do, so that’s where they find themselves,” Christian said. “I think there’s a fair bit of provincial — if not national — attention on this store, so I’m quite optimistic that it will be approved.”
Christian said the city business licence inspector’s work on the Joint Provincial-Local Government Committee on Cannabis Regulation brought Kamloops good information to help guide its creation of regulations.
He said opposition to the first store has mainly come from two camps — those fundamentally opposed to federal legalization, and operators of medical cannabis dispensaries, which the federal government has yet to address.
But the city is already looking at two more applications for private stores and two more for government stores, all of which will likely go to council over the next two months.
Christian said he expects the city to eventually have up to a dozen private stores.
“As the mayor, I’m quite pleased with the way that we’ve moved along on several fronts, moving with the police, the public health authorities, the business community on this,” he said.
“I think we have something that’s functional and I also think that the retail landscape for cannabis is going to change quite vastly over the first year, so we need to be flexible.”