Hold off on pot shops, mayor urges
Wait-and-see approach allows city to keep its options open, Dilkens says
If Mayor Drew Dilkens has his way, there will be no cannabis retail stores in Windsor.
“That would be my choice, to take a pause, to opt out and take a wait-and-see approach,” said Dilkens. “See how it rolls out in other municipalities.” “I’m trying to reconcile spending $200 million investing and trying to revitalize downtown in the last 10 years, and then moving forward saying we’re OK with these sites. We don’t really control where they’re located as long as they’re 150 metres away from a school.” The recreational use of marijuana became legal across Canada on Oct. 17. Currently, the only way to legally buy cannabis in Ontario is the provincial government’s online cannabis store.
The province has said it will allow the creation of private brick and mortar stores, supplied solely by the government pot wholesaler, by April 1.
Recently announced provincial regulations governing the new cannabis storefronts state that sales will be restricted to adults 19 years and older. The stores can be open between 9 a.m. and 11 p.m. daily. The maximum number of stores per operator in the province is set at 75.
But municipalities can decide if they want to opt out of having retail marijuana shops. They have until Jan. 22 to vote on the issue. Lakeshore and Tecumseh have already opted out.
If a city chooses to opt out, it can opt back in at any time. But once a municipality is in, it can’t back out. If city council doesn’t make its desire known by the deadline, the province will automatically consider Windsor to be on board with cannabis storefronts. “There’s no harm in opting out and taking a wait-and-see approach for 60 days or six months or a year to see how it rolls out in other jurisdictions,” said Dilkens. “If you don’t opt out, then you’re considered to have opted in and you can never opt out again.” The city has launched an online survey to gauge public opinion on having retail stores. The deadline to take the survey is Jan. 4. Dilkens said an overwhelming response in favour of cannabis shops would not change his mind. “It’s one of the factors I would consider, but it’s not the determinant factor,” he said. “I know surveys can be manipulated. There are networks of people saying click on this survey, it will take you two seconds, and they could be from Vancouver or Denver or wherever. So it’s one of the things you would listen to and consider, but I don’t consider that determinative.” Dilkens said a summer 2016 trip to check out the situation in Denver, Colorado, where marijuana has been legalized for several years, gave him cause for concern. He said he visited a couple marijuana stores and didn’t like what he saw around them.
“I have concerns about what I’ve seen in Denver around these retail shops and the type of activity that goes on, and how it diminishes the area where they’re located,” said Dilkens.
“It attracts certain types of behaviour that I think would cause the average citizen concern to walk through those areas. From what I’ve seen, I wouldn’t doubt that there’s an increase in petty crimes or nuisance type crimes. That wouldn’t surprise me.” He added that banning retail storefronts in Windsor doesn’t stop anyone from getting cannabis. “Everyone in Ontario who lives here can go online and place their order and have it delivered the next day or in two days,” said Dilkens. “So if smoking or using cannabis is something people are interested in doing, it’s still available to them. So whether or not we have retail shops, it doesn’t prohibit people in Ontario from placing an order and still accessing it.”