Councils vote to allow legal pot stores

Kitchener, Waterloo unanimously endorse retail operations

— Kitchener and Waterloo will welcome legal pot shops, arguing it will provide a safer product and help fight the illegal drug trade.

But it’s still unclear when the cities might see cannabis storefronts. Ontario has approved just seven pot shops to open across western Ontario in April, in an area that stretches from Windsor to Niagara and up to Manitoulin.

Potential operators were revealed Friday but their plans, locations and backgrounds won’t be known until after Jan. 22, the deadline for municipalities to vote on whether they will allow retail pot shops.

Both Waterloo and Kitchener councils unanimously endorsed retail operations Monday.

“The black market, it wreaks havoc on people’s lives,” Waterloo Coun. Tenille Bonoguore said. She’s persuaded that weed will be safer if purchased legally from a regulated storefront.

“To me, it’s like buying your alcohol or getting your cigarettes,” Waterloo Coun. Angela Vieth said.

Allowing pot shops has several benefits, said Kitchener Coun. Bil Ioannidis. “If we have legally operational storefronts, we have a regulated supply, it’ll pay sales tax, it’ll pay property taxes, it’ll create jobs and it will restrict sales (of cannabis) to youth.”

Cambridge council votes Tuesday on whether to allow pot shops.

A community that says no to storefronts can change its mind later. Saying yes can’t be reversed.

Saying yes gives municipalities access to a share of the excise taxes the government collects on cannabis sales. Coun. Paul Singh said it would be foolish for Kitchener to say no to that windfall.

“If we opt out, we are losing sight of easy money that’s on the table right now,” Singh said.

Coun. Scott Davey in Kitchener said that, if Colorado’s legal sales are any example, pot sales could generate millions for cities. “I don’t think the amount of money that we’re getting, especially from the province, is a fair distribution of the wealth,” he said.

This region is expected to get at least one legal pot store in April.

Ontario, which has been selling cannabis online after Canada legalized it in October, is slowly approving private storefronts after retailers elsewhere had to close due to a shortage of legal cannabis.

Waterloo Regional Police Service asked local politicians to approve legal storefronts. “We want to look past the previous morality,” Chief Bryan Larkin told Waterloo council. “Prohibition has ended.”

Police say permitting legal storefronts regulated by the province will be safer for consumers and help fight the illegal drug trade.

Resident Stephen Herzog urged Waterloo council to ban pot shops, arguing that storefronts should be located 800 metres from schools rather than 150 metres as Ontario requires. He’s bothered that local councils can’t regulate locations.

“You are being bullied by the province,” Herzog said. “Just say no to bullying.”

Approval of pot shops by three local cities would bring $500,000 in provincial funding to help them adjust.

Any local pot shops would be limited to areas where retail sales are permitted. Both cities are calling on the province to locate stores at least 150 metres from shelters and social services serving youth, addiction counselling services, community centres, libraries and rec centres, and other pot shops.

Waterloo will ask that pots shops be located at least 150 metres from post-secondary institutions, childcare centres and playgrounds.