Vancouver to weed out illegal marijuana dispensaries
Council makes ‘historic’ move toward regulation
Vancouver changed the landscape of Canada’s cannabis culture on Wednesday, becoming the first city in Canada to regulate illegal marijuana dispensaries.
The action, which will see a two-tiered licensing system aimed at weeding out for-profit dispensaries in favour of nonprofit compassion clubs, comes as the federal government continues to reject calls to loosen its drug policies.
From Wednesday, dispensary owners have 60 days to apply for a licence and will have to qualify under tight criteria, including criminal record checks and limits on where their shops can be located.
Prominent on the map of no-go places for dispensaries are the Downtown Eastside, Chinatown and Granville entertainment district, as well as anywhere near schools, community centres and other public gathering places.
We are faced with a tough situation. … We will be looking forward to some more sane policy out of Ottawa to deal with the gaps that currently exist. GREGOR ROBERTSON MAYOR OF VANCOUVER
An astonishing proliferation of pot shops sprung up in a legal vacuum created by an ongoing court challenge to the new federal government rules on medical marijuana. But in trying to wrestle down the issue, the city appears to have won few friends.
Shortly after council passed a bylaw that would close as many as two-thirds of the estimated 100 now in operation, it was assailed by both federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose and pot shop owners who say they will fight the new regulations.
Even the operators of some of the city’s oldest compassion clubs were unhappy because some are caught inside a 300metre proximity rule that bars shops near schools, community centres and other public places.
In a tip of the hat to the work compassion clubs do, however, city council lowered its proposed $30,000 annual licence fee to $1,000 for non-profits that also offer services such as nutritional counselling, acupuncture and massage therapy. The city did not relent on its ban on the sale of edible products, saying it doesn’t want children to be lured into buying cookies and candies laced with marijuana. Still, it said sealed oils and tinctures can be sold to people who could make their own edible products at home.
Under the rules, clubs will likely qualify for licenses more easily than so-called profit shops that don’t provide such services, as long as they are registered societies.
“A compassion club has to provide wraparound services. It has to have a membership, annual general meetings, as well as be a non-profit,” said Coun. Kerry Jang, who sponsored the motion calling for regulation. “Most profit shops don’t do anything; they just are a storefront.”
The new bylaw governs where dispensaries can operate. Applicants also must be owners, not corporations, and are not allowed to apply for or operate more than five dispensaries. They will also be subject to police criminal records checks.
Jang said existing dispensaries that do not meet the city rules, including those already within proximity to schools, will have to close.
Dispensaries also can’t be located within 300 metres of each other. The city will use a demerit points system to thin out existing overlapping dispensaries. For example, for-profit shops that offer no additional patient-based services will be given 10 demerit points. If the place has had complaints from more than one person in the last 12 months, that’s another two demerit points. If the shop has done work without a permit, that’s three points. And if it has a history of poor business practices, they get tacked with another four points. The dispensary with the fewest demerit points wins, as long as it still complies with other city rules and bylaws.
The city says it will take a robust approach to closing shops that violate the new ordinance or operate without a licence. It said it will apply the same bylaw enforcement procedures it uses for other businesses, but is prepared to also issue fines of up to $10,000 daily for those that refuse to comply and take scofflaws to court.
That is separate from any enforcement action the police have said they will take if they find a shop selling to children or is involved in organized crime.
Mayor Gregor Robertson defended the council’s historic decision, saying the city was forced into regulating the shops with its business licence bylaw because Ottawa has stridently refused to amend its drug policies.
“We are faced with a tough situation, a complicated situation, because the federal government has failed to act on regulating medical marijuana appropriately,” he told reporters. “We will be looking forward to some more sane policy out of Ottawa to deal with the gaps that currently exist.”
Jamie Shaw of B.C. Compassion Club Society, Vancouver’s oldest dispensary, which would now be forced to move, called the new regulations a “historic move.”
“It’s actually great that they’re encouraging some dispensaries to be a little bit more patientfocused and patient-centred while still not actually outlawing more recreational-minded ones,” she said.
Shaw said she is hopeful the chief licensing inspector will refer her dispensary to council so she can make a case to keep it in the same location, near an elementary school.
However, Jang said such approval would be tough to give. The city doesn’t want to give any leeway to any shop within a 300-metre proximity of schools and community centres, arguing there are plenty of other suitable locations.