Firing up a joint in a Langford park or trail or near a building doorway or air vent will soon be subject to a $100 ticket.
Langford council has agreed to amend both its parks and traffic bylaws and put smoking or vaping cannabis in the same category as tobacco.
“People were complaining in Langford that people were smoking dope here and smoking dope there. So I said: ‘Now it’s the same rules as smoking cigarettes,’ ” said Langford Mayor Stew Young.
“So if you can’t smoke a cigarette somewhere, you can’t smoke marijuana there.”
The changes mirror regulations in the Capital Regional District’s Clean Air Bylaw and will prohibit smoking or vaping of cannabis in a park or open space, or on a beach or trail.
Changes to Langford’s traffic bylaw will prohibit smoking or vaping of cannabis in a public place or on a highway unless the user is a certain distance — ranging from seven to 20 metres — from a school, doorway, window, intersection or crosswalk, bus stop, rec centre or cannabis store.
The municipality plans to begin an education process for residents about the new rules, Young said.
None of the private cannabis retailers hoping to set up shop in Langford have been approved yet.
The city started vetting prospective cannabis businesses in June with the hope the provincial government would approve some shortly after legalization Oct. 17.
After issuing a request for proposals, Langford short-listed five cannabis operators who passed several criteria, including RCMP criminal-record checks.
Those five applications were sent to the provincial government in August, and Langford is still waiting to hear back.
The plan is to issue up to five, three-year temporary operating permits for cannabis retailers. By issuing only temporary operating permits, the municipality will have the opportunity to evaluate the operations, Young said.
The cannabis retailers will have to pay Langford an application fee, which will help pay for a community liaison officer and an RCMP school liaison officer, Young said.
He doesn’t want any additional costs downloaded onto local taxpayers and doesn’t expect that cannabis retailing will be a cash cow for the municipality.
“There’s no money in the marijuana from the taxation point of view. The federal government will eat up all their [tax revenue with] bureaucracy. The province will have their bureaucracy,” Young said.
“We’re sitting in unknown territory. We don’t know anything about what’s actually happening from an income point of view for us.”
Young said if the municipality ends up getting new revenue from cannabis retailing, he’s prepared to adjust Langford’s fees.
“I’ll be fair. We’re not going to be the highest-priced pot stores around. But we will manage it to make sure our community is safe and to make sure the kids get an education in school [about cannabis].”
