Pot sales wide open

Photo: Rob Gibson

City council has reversed field in respect to where non-medical cannabis retail stores will be allowed to set up.

Initially, council sided with a staff recommendation to keep retail cannabis stores off Leon and Lawrence avenues, however, at Tuesday's public hearing, council reversed that decision.

While storefronts will be allowed throughout the city, certain distance restrictions will remain in place.

Council did debate the merits of some of the distance restrictions, but did go with staff recommendations that businesses cannot be within 500 metres of each other, 150 metres from parks and elementary schools and 500 metres from middle and high schools.

While the production, sale and consumption of non-medical cannabis will be legalized Oct. 17 in Canada, Kelowna won't see its first legal cannabis retail store until sometime in late spring of next year.

All prospective retaillers will have to go through a rezoning process which could take several months to complete.

The first step in that process will be to make a rezoning application. The window for that application is from Oct. 1 to Nov. 30.

Once applications are received, they will be reviewed, and scored based on a number of criteria. Those with the highest scores will be placed at the front of the line.

When debating the issue last month, many on council were concerned with the scoring process and the criteria being used.

That criteria will go back to the drawing board after council argued staff did not have the expertise to compare business plans.

"It's not up to the city to analyze different business," said Coun. Tracy Gray.

She said there were enough checks and balances at the provincial level.

Under the proposed criteria, applicants can receive a maximum of 100 points based on four separate criteria.

Location, community compatibility and impact (40 point maximum), building facade and interior improvements (25 point maximum), qualifications and experience (20 point maximum), security plan (15 points).

Applicants could also be docked up to 20 points if they failed to comply with previous regulation specific to cannabis.

A new plan will be brought back to council before the municipal election.