St. Albert council threw on the brakes Monday night when it comes to accepting development permit applications from would-be medical marijuana production facilities.
After a hurried session in camera, council unanimously passed a motion that no applications for medical marijuana production facilities be received by the city until April 23, 2014.
The move came after council had discussed a report from city staff about medical marijuana production facilities and Coun. Cathy Heron had presented a notice of motion to look at updating the city’s land use bylaw so that the facilities are a discretionary use and to look at setbacks from residential areas, schools and daycares.
After moving on to another topic, council was advised suddenly by city manager Patrick Draper that he’d just received information that there might be a development application for just such a facility coming in before that notice of motion could be addressed.
“We would have to process it under the current land use bylaws,” said Carol Bergum, director of planning and development. “We are anticipating such applications imminently.”
Earlier in the evening council had received a report on the medical marijuana production facilities issue from staff triggered by a notice of motion from mayor Nolan Crouse.
On April 1, new federal regulations came into effect that will no longer allow medical marijuana users to grow their own at home. Instead, they will have to procure their supply through licensed production facilities.
Though an injunction was granted that allows those home-growers to continue for now, municipalities across Canada have been considering whether or not to allow the new medical marijuana production facilities within their borders.
City staff’s recommendation was to treat the facilities as an allowed light industrial use, which the current land use bylaw would permit.
The report noted that if an application was received with no changes to the land use bylaw having been made, it would likely proceed as a permitted light industrial use.
If council wants to prohibit them from St. Albert or permit them with further regulations, staff asked to be given that direction.
Some of council expressed concern that the political decision would be taken out of their hands if permit approval was solely in the hands of a development officer.
“I don’t know what the community’s view is on this,” said Coun. Wes Brodhead.
Heron decided to put forward her notice of motion before council was alerted to the possibility of an application coming in.
Crouse moved the report be received as information, but took aim at the argument that the city might be overstepping its jurisdiction if it banned the production facilities outright.
He noted other communities have banned things like panhandling, pawn shops or strip clubs.
“You have obligations in your community to make sure you’re addressing particular things that are important to your community,” he said.
Coun. Tim Osborne pointed out the facility would produce medical marijuana, which is legal.
“I get an uneasy feeling in my stomach when council starts drifting towards questions of morality,” Osborne said, noting “while this might not be exactly what the city had in mind when bringing on the botanical arts brand” he doesn’t see any reason to not proceed. He pointed out Health Canada has strict regulations around the facilities.
Coun. Gilles Prefontaine reminded council that the report was just meant to be for information at this time.
“I like the fact that we’ve got information, I like the fact that we’re looking at it objectively,” he said, adding he looks forward to getting more information.
Those discussions took place before council got the news an application was expected imminently.
Once council passed its motion to not accept any applications until April 23, they tacked on an information request to get an RCMP perspective as part of the backgrounder, as well as information on the regulations from Health Canada around the facilities.
