The Village of Ashcroft is considering allowing retail cannabis stores to be established in Ashcroft.
At last week’s village council meeting, staff recommended that council review the bylaw currently prohibiting a cannabis dispensary from being opened within Ashcroft. Mayor Barbara Roden said this bylaw was originally adopted in 2018 as non-medicinal cannabis was first legalized federally.
“Like a lot of communities, council amended an existing bylaw to prohibit retail cannabis sales,” Roden said. “The thought was that we would wait and see what (legalization) looked like after things were rolled out. Lots of communities took the same approach at the time, as a lot of the federal and provincial regulations were still unclear/unknown.”
Roden added that council hasn’t revisited the issue since because more pressing concerns, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have kept them occupied for the last five years. She now thinks the time is right to revisit the bylaw and look at amending it, following public consultation.
Roden said it’s important to make sure an individual can apply to open a retail cannabis establishment, once they jump through all the federal and provincial red tape.
Over the last three years the village has received a handful of inquiries about the bylaw from entrepreneurs.
After discussion, council voted to direct staff to create a draft bylaw to replace the existing one.
“Amending a bylaw of this sort is time-consuming: staff have to prepare the amended bylaw, bring it to an agenda, council goes over it, it comes back to another meeting for first and second reading, then there’s a public meeting, any revisions are done, it comes back to another meeting for third reading, then it comes to yet another meeting for final adoption,” Roden explained.
“Given that we only have one meeting in July, August, and September, it would probably be the end of the year before everything was done.”
editorial@accjournal.ca
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