An open house to discuss the draft of the incoming cannabis land use bylaw amendment in the Town of St. Paul was sparsely attended on Sept. 20.
If passed, the bylaw amendment would limit cannabis stores to land currently zoned as C-1 with Main Street frontage. Those lots also have to be at least 100m from schools and provincial healthcare facilities to comply with Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission regulations.
Although the federal government has mandated cannabis consumption to be legal across Canada as of Oct. 17, it has left provinces to write their own legislation and regulations surrounding the sale. In Alberta, this responsibility has been delegated to the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission with municipalities left responsible for deciding where cannabis facilities can operate and where marijuana products can be used in their communities. Because of this approach, the municipal bylaws being written vary widely across the province.
Penny Fox, 53, is a county resident who came to the open house to learn more. She said she would have liked the province to have left less up to the municipalities so the rules for consumption would be consistent from community to community.
Fox said if St. Paul chooses to allow cannabis retail stores, she thinks downtown would be the best place for them.
“I would rather see it in the downtown with all the other commercial vendors than spread across the community. I think at the end of the day this is another product that’s being sold just like cigarettes and alcohol and every other product that’s being sold and the downtown is the space for that to happen in a regulated place where its busy and there’s people around and not stuck at the end of a street somewhere where there’s residences around them and children playing and those kinds of things” said Fox.
Josiah Clarke, 33, is a county resident who works in town. He’s in favour of cannabis stores being allowed to operate in town.
“I’m not really keen on the distance between each store has to be a hundred meters. There’s no regulations for that with liquor and stuff, like there’s liquor stores that are basically side by side so why is it that a pot store can’t be that way,” said Clarke.
Greg Roszell is very against the legalization of marijuana and doesn’t want to see cannabis stores in St. Paul.
“People are going to be stopping their medications to take this (marijuana). It’s going to cause nothing but social problems” said Roszell.
Only a few members of the general public attended the open house. St. Paul Mayor Maureen Miller said she expected more people to come out.
“But having said that maybe they’ll come to the public reading and voice something there. I just want to do what’s right for our community and this is part of that process. And maybe this is an indication too, maybe the public is not concerned about how we’re going to proceed forward” said Miller.
A draft copy of ‘Bylaw 1252: Cannabis Land Use Bylaw Amendments’ is available on the town website. Written submissions can be made to Aline Brousseau until Oct. 2, and a public hearing on the bylaw will be hosted at the Town Hall at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 9.
First reading of the bylaw was approved at the Sept. 24 council meeting.
