Sarnia council OKs local pot shops

Sarnia city council has voted in favour of hosting retail cannabis stores.

Only two councillors voted against the proposal. “There is absolutely zero doubt that we have consumers in this community, there is zero doubt that they will be accessing this product either legally or illegally,” said Coun. Brian White.

“I’d rather have somebody at the table who’s part of this,” he said. A recent Sarnia survey showed that 87.8 per cent of respondents support having private cannabis storefronts in the municipality. With 814 people completing the surveys, 87.3 per cent said they strongly or somewhat agreed that the retail model would benefit the economy.

A majority of the respondents were aged 30 to 44. Leamington also voted in favour of retail pot stores Monday night, but because of the municipality’s smaller size, the earliest it could get a store is December 2019. Lakeshore and Tecumseh have already voted to opt out of hosting retail cannabis stores. Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens has come out opposed to Windsor hosting retail cannabis stores in the first round of availability. Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley says he’s on board with allowing cannabis shops and thinks they could help stamp out a black market supply he says can be laced with other drugs.

“I haven’t seen that come up as much as an issue in other cities, but that to me is a huge reason,” Bradley said before the meeting, citing safety concerns.

Dr. Del Donald with the Bluewater Methadone Clinic said there are instances where patients at the clinic who were otherwise thought to be drug-free have tested for trace amounts of cocaine or methamphetamine in their systems, and it’s suspected to have come from consuming contaminated marijuana.

Having bricks-and-mortar stores, alongside government online sales, gives people another option to get cannabis that hasn’t been tampered with, Bradley said. City council is being asked Monday to either opt in or out of allowing private cannabis retailers in Sarnia.

The provincial government has announced it’s phasing in the stores with a lottery via the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario for the first 25 licences. That’s fewer than the 40 stores the previous Liberal government had planned to open in 2018.

The reason is a supply shortage, the Ontario Tories said last week, casting blame at the federal government.

Either way odds are Sarnia won’t have a store April 1, said Bradley, noting the city wasn’t included either in the first round under the plan of former premier Kathleen Wynne.

So far only a handful of municipalities in Ontario have answered yea or nay on the question of allowing private retailers to sell cannabis. In Lambton County, DawnEuphemia that has opted in. Prospective retailers have to submit online to the AGCO Jan. 7-9, with the draw for licences on Jan. 11, the provincial government says.

Bradley said he is concerned there’s no rezoning process for cannabis stores — the AGCO stipulates what they can sell, when they can operate, and that they must be 150 metres back from any school.

But Sarnia should still forge ahead, Bradley said, even if it can’t decide where the stores will be. “It’s a legalized substance and people I think in this community who wish to purchase it should have the right to do that at a retail store,” he said.