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Proposed cannabis bylaw deemed too restrictive, sent back for revision

Apr 16, 2018 | 11:23 PM

Red Deer city council needs more time to come to a consensus on what specific regulations should exist around retail cannabis sales.

Following a short public hearing in which a handful of speakers voiced concerns that proposed 300 metre setbacks were too restrictive or not appropriate, councillors put forth numerous amendments to decrease those separations.

This led council to ask administration to compile a report within four weeks on what the impacts of each proposed amendment would be. They include changing setbacks between cannabis stores and schools, daycares, indoor recreation facilities, hospital and healthcare facilities, and other cannabis stores.

Commercial retailer Brett Salomons spoke during the public hearing, stating his disbelief in the notion that keeping cannabis stores away from schools will prevent people, namely youth, from accessing them.

“If someone wants that product, they’ll find a way,” he said. “With respect to daycares, you can guarantee the cannabis guys are going to maximize any site in Red Deer, and you’re now in effect restricting daycares. You’re then taking away a use I think the community wants to see.”

Ryan Sawatzky with Dev2 Inc. noted his company already has a daycare client at Timberlands Market, an area with 15 buildings, meaning he wouldn’t be able to welcome a cannabis shop if the required setback is 300m.

“What I think you’ll find is the opposite effect of what you’re trying to create here — less daycare and more cannabis, and that would be a shame,” he said. “Cannabis retail will be large industry and bring many tax dollars to Red Deer.”

Christina Merrells, who runs Compass Cannabis Clinic across from the downtown Safeway, called the proposed 300m punitive to a business like hers, which hopes to transition to a dispensary come summer. As the bylaw stands, her business is too close to the hospital.

Another person at the hearing called 300m outrageous given what’s been approved in other communities and that the provincial minimum is just 100m.

Mayor Tara Veer once again lamented the mixed messaging and extremely tight timelines municipalities have been dealing with in making these complex bylaw amendments.

“Part of the great challenges we’ve gone through dealing with the legalization of cannabis is do we attend to it as we do with alcohol or as we do with tobacco? Both have very different public policy implications,” she said. “It is both. It affects impairment, so from a public safety perspective we have to tend to it in some parameters like alcohol, but we also deal with it from a tobacco perspective because it’s very similar in that it has implications on public health.”

Veer also noted it is advantageous to begin with more conservative regulations as it easier to relax them than it is to make them more restrictive in the future.

Ahead of the public hearing, The City ran an online survey regarding cannabis legalization. Nearly 1,500 people took part, with 45 per cent saying their greatest concern was the location of retail stores

Sixty-five per cent favoured strip malls or arterial roadways for the location of cannabis stores, while 49 per cent preferred major shopping centres, 45 per cent in the downtown area, 31 per cent in shopping malls, and 30 per cent in neighbourhood retail areas.

Eighty-nine per cent of respondents felt setbacks should be a minimum of 100m, while 38 per cent felt they should be 300m. The minimum set out by the province is 100m.

Once city council moves on from the Land Use Bylaw amendments, they will still need to debate changes to the Licensing and Smoke Free bylaw ahead of recreational cannabis becoming legal.