Committee wants more space between pot shops

A city committee has agreed that cannabis stores shouldn’t be located too close together along Stephen Avenue, after concerns were raised about cannabis “clustering ” in one of the city’s most high profile shopping districts.

Council’s planning committee voted unanimously Monday in favour of implementing a guideline that requires cannabis stores be separated by at least 300 metres along 8th Avenue in the downtown core. Downtown Calgary was previously exempt from many of the bylaws pertaining to separation distances.

The proposed guideline must still be approved by a full vote of council later this month, but committee’s decision was welcomed by the Calgary Downtown Association which has previously advocated for the distance requirement.

“We think it’s prudent and responsible that administration wants to manage the potential for social and economic impacts,” said Marco De Iaco, executive director of the Calgary Downtown Association. “Right now, I think it’s really important that we work to rejuvenate downtown Calgary as a whole, work to reinvent and ask ourselves what the identity of Stephen Avenue should be, could be, and then work to encourage that.”

Currently, three cannabis store applications have been approved for 8th Avenue between Macleod Trail and 9 Street S.W., one is currently under review and one has been refused.

Coun. Jyoti Gondek, who chairs the planning committee, said that the separation distance requirement is “smart,” but warned that it’s still early in the process of legalization to draw too many conclusions.

“There’s already this negative connotation of having cannabis retail, period,” Gondek said Monday.

“So, I think we need to wait and see what happens. This is a product that has been legalized. We need to get over it.”