Area municipalities wrestle with cannabis regulations
Communities to decide where stores can be located, if people can use pot in public
With pot legalization just a monthand-a-half away, Calgary-area bedroom communities have granted only a handful of cannabis store approvals and are grappling with regulating reefers.
Some have yet to decide on an approval process, store setbacks from sensitive amenities, or whether marijuana can be consumed publicly.
City of Calgary officials have approved the locations of about 120 store sites, though they’re still dealing with amendments to a public smoking ban.
Airdrie city councillors are still struggling over how far cannabis stores will be permitted from each other, with some including Tina Petrow insisting on a 200-metre buffer between them and places seniors and children frequent, rather than the province’s 100-metre minimum guideline.
“Even if we do restrictive things right now, we can look at it again a year down the road. I love the entrepreneurial spirit in our city, but we have to test it,” Petrow said at a recent city council public hearing.
Coun. Candice Kolson disagreed, questioning why cannabis retailers should be held to a stricter standard than are liquor merchants.
“I don’t think we need to be the morality police,” said Kolson.
Lawmakers and potential cannabis store owners in the city of 68,000 are also in disagreement over whether the windows of those shops should be blacked out.
In Cochrane, lawmakers have yet to settle on an approval process, let alone having sanctioned any locations, said Mike Korman, economic development manager of the town of 28,000.
“We’re looking at what process do we need, what documents are required, is it first-come, firstserve for applicants,” said Korman, adding the town has adopted a ban on public pot consumption.
“We’re erring on the side of caution.”
He said there are six to 10 possible retail applicants, though the 150-metre buffer that town council has adopted means there are few possible store sites in a centre the size of Cochrane’s.
It’s a similar situation in Okotoks, where a 100-metre setback rule has been adopted.
“It makes it hard to have anything like that in the downtown,” said Joan Botkin, spokeswoman for the town of 28,000 south of Calgary.
But the town has approved one store location with two more under review, said development planner Cari Florizone.
But with so many permits still to acquire and provincial sanction outstanding, it’s not certain any would open by Oct. 17, she said.
“There’s a lot of moving parts … these store operators must be very ambitious,” said Florizone.
The town of High River is still seeking public input on whether pot consumption will be allowed in public, something that likely won’t be settled until just before Oct. 17, say town officials.
But the town of 14,000 has tentatively approved five cannabis store locations, four in its downtown.
A 150-metre setback law was relaxed by a single metre to accommodate a fourth of those in the town’s small core, said interim town planner Sarah Peck.
“But because it was appealed, it tells me there’s at least some concern from the community,” she said.
The appeal was dismissed and the town’s approval of the store stands, added Peck.
But the province has yet to give final approval to any cannabis outlet in Alberta.
A bid to dilute Calgary’s public cannabis consumption prohibition by creating designated usage sites has so far yielded only four proposed spaces, which have run into opposition. A public hearing on the sites is slated for Oct. 9.
Regulators are also dealing with at least 78 appeals of city decisions made on about 260 retail locations in Calgary.