An Esquimalt councillor’s bid to ensure cannabis stores aren’t clustered together in the west side of Esquimalt was defeated 4-3 on Monday night.
Coun. Tim Morrison presented a motion to amend a zoning bylaw to require at least 200 metres between cannabis retailers.
The motion follows the lead of Victoria and Vancouver, which have implemented restrictions on the distances between cannabis retailers.
Mayor Barb Desjardins was one of the four councillors who shot down the motion, explaining that 200 metres is an arbitrary distance and that the current system, which requires applicants to go through a zoning process and public hearing, will allow council the control it needs to regulate the businesses.
“The reason I didn’t support it is I felt we have enough controls at this time to regulate the number of sites or cannabis stores — where they are and what benefit they are to the community,” Desjardins said. “We have full control now on how it goes forward.”
Desjardins said the timing of this motion is also a challenge, as there are three applications for cannabis businesses already headed to public hearings.
“It would be confusing at this time, so one of my suggestions was that we could defer this discussion and direction and tell staff we didn’t want to accept other applications until after we determine what we are doing with these three,” Desjardins said.
Other councillors who voted against the motion noted that similar restrictions aren’t placed on liquor and tobacco stores and that the supply-and-demand market will usually self-correct.
All three of the cannabis business applications are within the Admirals Road area.
Morrison said two are “within very close proximity to each other,” near the Admirals and Esquimalt roads intersection. The third is at Admirals and Colville Road.
Recreational cannabis businesses are not permitted within 500 metres of a school, restricting applications to the western portion of Esquimalt.
If the three stores are approved and the township receives more applications, “this could likely result in a close clustering of recreational cannabis businesses within certain neighbourhoods of Esquimalt,” Morrison said.
In his motion, Morrison noted that Esquimalt has limited commercial storefront retail space and a diversity of storefront businesses should be encouraged.
Vancouver does not permit cannabis business operations within 300 metres of each other while the City of Victoria does not permit cannabis businesses within 400 metres of each other. Nanaimo has a 300-metre buffer.
Such a policy would allow council to provide “fairness, consistency and clarity for our community’s neighbourhoods as well as for the applicants,” Morrison’s motion said.
Without it, considerable expenses and resources will be required by both the applicants and the municipality to prepare rezoning applications for council consideration, he said.
Desjardins said she plans to review a map of where cannabis businesses are allowed.
“There were a number of discussions [Monday night] that I think it made it such that we didn’t want to make that hard and fast decision at this point,” she said, adding that a similar motion could be considered in the future.
“We have a mechanism whereby we can look at each proposal coming forward through a zoning process,” Desjardins said. “Maybe there is a reason to have two closer together.”
