Most dispensaries

break city’s location rules

Sixty per cent of Vancouver’s marijuana businesses violate city hall’s proposed rules that they not be within 300 metres of each other, and more than a third are too close to a school or community centre, an analysis by The Sun shows.

The proposed rules could eliminate 25 per cent of Vancouver’s 80 marijuana-related businesses, the city predicts, and will not grandfather in existing shops.

While many of the owners are happy the city is trying to regulate the industry, nearly all are worried about the future of their locations and hope the rules will be tweaked after some consultation.

“When I opened my first place on Burrard and Davie, there was nothing anywhere near me then. Now there is a marijuana business that opened up behind me on Howe that had nothing to do with me,” said Don Briere, owner of 11 Weeds, Glass & Gifts locations in Vancouver. “Why should I leave when I was the first one there?”

Briere is confident his outfits meet all of the requirements in the city’s elaborate list of rules to determine which business gets to stay open if there are two within 300 metres of each other.

The businesses get demerit points for problems, such as visits from police or complaints from the community, and the one with the most points can stay. But in the case of a tie, a lottery will be held, which Briere said is unfair to long-standing businesses.

Briere faces another hurdle with these new regulations, which require a criminal record check for all owners. Convicted more than a decade ago for several offences related to growing and selling marijuana, he argues it isn’t fair to continue punishing him after he has served his jail time.

“If you have paid your price to society, what is the deal here? Are you forever condemned to wear a stamp on your forehead?” he asked.

Buying marijuana outside Ottawa’s strict medicinal pot access program is still against the law in Canada, which left these medicinal pot dispensaries and lounges in a legal grey area. The city says the federal government’s decision last year to ban medicinal marijuana patients from growing their own pot led to the proliferation of these shops, and forced Vancouver to regulate this burgeoning industry.

Coun. Kerry Jang, the city’s lead spokesman on this issue, said a criminal record wouldn’t preclude ownership, but the police would make a recommendation about whether the applicant’s offence was significant or minor.

Vancouver police said Thursday its approach to these businesses will remain unchanged — that they would be investigated individually based on complaints. The VPD’s drug-enforcement focus remains on dealers, and anyone who preys on vulnerable people and puts children at risk, Sgt. Randy Fincham said.

Using a variety of sources, including the website leafly.com, The Sun compiled a list of 58 of the 80 marijuana-related businesses in Vancouver. (The city would not release its list to The Sun.)

Of those, 34 were within 300 metres of another marijuanarelated business. Distances were calculated as the crow flies rather than according to driving distances.

Twenty-two were within 300 metres of a school, community centre or neighbourhood house, another violation of the new rules.

Vancouver’s first dispensary, the B.C. Compassion Club Society on Commercial Drive, was established in 1997. Several years later, a private school called Stratford Hall opened across the street.

The society is happy the city is trying to regulate the industry, but will ask it to “finesse” the school rule, communications director Isaac Oommen said.

“We’ve had a really good relationship with the school,” he added.

The club’s members obey a request by Stratford Hall not to smoke in a nearby park, and the school brings its Grade 12 science class to the dispensary to learn about the medicinal benefits of marijuana.