Municipal D-Day looms for pot sales in Ontario

It’s a decision day for hundreds of Ontario municipalities, the first big thing many of their new councils elected last fall have to face this year. Within 10 days, every place in the province with its own government must decide whether or not it will allow legal pot stores within its boundaries. Windsor’s new city council deals with the matter Jan. 21.

In some ways, it’s not yet a huge deal. After all, Ontario is allowing only 25 marijuana stores for the entire province — home to 444 municipalities — in the first rollout of legal pot shops this spring. But with recreational and medicinal marijuana use in Canada here to stay, and a huge industry taking shape to cater to it, especially in southwestern Ontario’s emerging pot-growing belt, sitting out what’s expected to become a much larger market — extending to pot-infused food and drink and other lifestyle options — brings its own risks. Turn your nose up at pot, and someone else — down the road, or across the province — laps up the spoils.

With the Jan. 22 deadline just a week away, more than two dozen cities and towns, including at least 10 in southwestern Ontario, have already decided to block marijuana sales, citing concerns about drug

abuse, crime and their inability to control store locations (the province sets the rules).

Many other places are playing the 11th-hour waiting game, watching what neighbours are doing, trying to get their hands on more information and putting off deciding until closer to the deadline.

They might be forgiven for holding out.

After all, Ontarians have seen the landscape for the sale of legal weed change dramatically between two provincial governments in only seven months, from the monopoly approach of the former Liberal government that wanted to sell pot at a specific number of stores linked to the LCBO, to Doug Ford’s 360-degree turn on the file. His Progressive Conservatives first decided to let the private sector sell cannabis with no limits on store numbers.

But they’re now tightly restricting the number of stores because of a shortage of product they blame on the federal government, which licenses legal pot producers. Opting out — communities that say no can change their minds later, but not the reverse — and banning legal pot shops is a short-sighted move, critics warn, one that will only fuel demand for black market marijuana and cost places that say no to funding from the province. But even as Ontario finally reveals which would-be sellers will get the first 25 locations in the province, some civic politicians remain skeptical of openly allowing the sale of a drug that was prohibited for 95 years in Canada until the federal Liberals legalized its recreational use last fall.

THE CASE FOR OPTING IN

One cornerstone of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2015 election vow to legalize recreational pot was to cut off the money flowing to criminals from illegal sales of the drug.

Critics cautioned that only a retail system making marijuana easily available to Canadians, at a competitive price, would muscle out drug dealers and black market operators. A municipality opting out of allowing marijuana dispensaries doesn’t make that possible, says Trina Fraser, a leading cannabis lawyer.

“The underlying fact that you can’t get rid of, is that so long as you’re not providing a convenient, comparable, legal alternative, the illegal market will continue to flourish,” said Fraser, an Ottawabased lawyer who advises the marijuana industry. Snuffing out the black market was a driving force behind London city council’s decision to approve marijuana dispensaries in the city when the bricks-and-mortar businesses are first allowed to open in April.

“Taking it out of the hands of organized crime and putting it in retail stores is ... a huge step forward,” Coun. Maureen Cassidy said of the decision to embrace dispensaries.

Cities and towns opposed to pot stores are also losing out on their slice of $40 million being doled out by the province over the next two years, in part to deal with law enforcement and public education issues.

Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley compares today’s situation with pot, with municipalities forced to decide whether or not to allow legal stores, to the era when Ontario was at odds over alcohol sales. “It’s going to create this checkerboard Ontario of communities — it’s the old dry and wet thing we had with liquor,” Bradley said, referring to places that did not allow liquor to be sold and those that did. “If it’s legal, and it’s available through the internet (through the government’s online sales monopoly), then it should be available for people to properly access it in every community,” he said of cannabis, adding a government-regulated industry will ultimately be much safer than the illicit market. Critics contend municipalities that have already opted out of hosting dispensaries made the decision based on fear, not facts. “I hope that we can get to the point where there are no opt-out municipalities, but I think that’s going to take some time,” Fraser said.

THE CASE FOR OPTING OUT

Not long after Canada became the second country to legalize recreational cannabis use, some politicians started vowing to ban legal pot shops.

Already, more than 24 Ontario municipalities have notified the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, the province’s pot regulator, that they’re barring marijuana retailers after their councils approved doing so.

The move by those municipalities can be reversed at any time. In Blandford-Blenheim, a township northeast of Woodstock with fewer than 8,000 residents, politicians unanimously supported opting out of hosting dispensaries. “We thought we’d let the big cities and the other areas go through the growing pains,” Mayor Mark Peterson said, adding residents can drive elsewhere to visit a pot retailer. One of the main concerns raised by communities in favour of opting out is the lack of control they have over the zoning of dispensaries. The AGCO will ultimately approve where dispensaries open and only require the stores be at least 150 metres from schools and meet physical security requirements. Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens wants his city to say no to pot shops — at least for now. “Frankly, I don’t believe the regulations go far enough to protect existing businesses and other agencies that are operating in the city,” Dilkens said, noting the 150-metre buffer for schools should also apply to daycares and mental health treatment facilities. “Now, that we’re only going to have 25 stores in the province ... there’s really no risk to opt out,” he said.

There’s especially strong opposition to marijuana retailers in Essex County, where Tecumseh, Lakeshore and LaSalle have voted to ban the businesses.

A Star survey of Windsor councillors indicated a majority is likely to vote in favour of opting in. The Association of Municipalities of Ontario, an umbrella group for municipalities, says it’s taking a neutral position on the issue.