Long wait to buy legal weed

Photo: The Canadian Press

It will be late spring of 2019 at the earliest before you'll be able to legally buy non-medicinal cannabis in Kelowna.

City planner Ryan Smith confirmed that timeline as the city prepares to introduce bylaws that will lay out exactly where storefronts can, and cannot be located.

Council will have that discussion Monday.

Before a business can apply for a business license, it must first go through a rezoning process.

If the bylaws are approved by council, Smith says the rezoning application process will begin Oct. 1, and run through the end of November.

"At the beginning of December, we'll begin evaluating all the rezoning applications we receive," says Smith.

"The ones that score the highest will get to go through our process first."

Smith says the rezoning process will take four to five months to complete.

Then, it will have to go before council and presumably a public hearing before the application can be approved.

After successfully receiving the rezoning approval, businesses would still have to apply for a business license.

Prospective retail owners will also have to pay a premium to have the rezoning application processed.

A normal application costs about $2,000, however, Smith says the city is proposing a $10,000 rezoning fee.

Smith says the city is trying to recoup its costs.

"There has been a lot of staff time to set this up and do reviews on this model. Having staff become familiar with the federal and provincial legislation, and legal time shutting down the illegal dispensaries that have been out there.

"We want to recover all of that."

The city has been taking some flack for its slow rollout of cannabis legislation. Smith says a cautious approach will be better in the long run.

"I think a conservative approach for something new like this, and I think council probably agrees, is the best way to go," he said.

"We don't know what the impact will likely be, we don;t know how many applications we are going to get. I think each one deserves a pretty good look and analysis."

Smith says it's been illegal for so long that to rush a rollout could bring unintended consequences that can;t be undone.

While the city is not entertaining any applications at the moment, Smith says they have had well over 100 inquiries.