Quesnel City Council may change course when it comes to the retail sale of recreational marijuana.
A motion to give third reading to a bylaw that would allow just one government run store in the City was defeated last night.
One of those opposed was new Councillor Mitch Vik…
“I would recommend first of all we entertain both private and government retail locations. Second recommendation would be to increase the number of stores to more than one, and my third recommendation would be to revisit the boundaries from schools.”
Councillor Tony Goulet, also a Trustee on Quesnel’s Board of Education, was also concerned about the proximity of these stores to schools…
“I am looking at how far we are going from a secondary or junior school. That’s my reason for not seconding this. I want to re-visit it and look at how far we’re going. We have in here within 50 meters of a secondary or junior school, and it says within 100 meters of a playground, which are almost the same, as there are playgrounds on school property.”
Goulet would like them to be consistent.
Other Councillors, including Ron Paull, have changed their mind since the last vote…
“Since we last visited this and since October 20th when cannabis was legalized much has happened, but more importantly much has not happened since cannabis became legal a month ago. The most significant of which is that only one, that I know of, government cannabis store exists in the province. There is none in Quesnel. Plus there is an alarming shortage of product country wide. Other communities will drain economic benefit from Quesnel as they move forward, which they are, and i’m talking neighbouring communities.”
In the end, only Councillor Scott Elliott was in favour of staying the course and having just one government store to start…
“I am in favour it going with public stores. That’s how liquor started in the first place. You confirm that everyone is going to get ID’d, just safer. And then we can re-visit after we have the one store and look at the parameters laid out by the province.”
Staff will now come back with a new report on potential options.
That will include going with a bylaw for different zones or spot zoning that wouldn’t require a bylaw and where each application would be judged on its own merits.