Pubdate: Fri, 01 Aug 2014
Source: Leduc Representative (CN AB)
Copyright: 2014 Osprey Media
Contact: http://www.leducrep.com/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx
Website: http://www.leducrep.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2265
Author: Russell Piffer

CITY CRACKING DOWN ON SALE OF PIPES, MARIJUANA PARAPHERNALIA

Selling items like pipes, bongs and grinders is going to be more
difficult in Leduc, if a new bylaw has its desired affect.

On June 23, city council passed Bylaw 861-2014, which amended Leduc's
business licensing regulations to restrict selling drug-related
merchandise and paraphernalia.

"Council has always had the viewpoint that this type of product and
business is not welcome in the city," said City of Leduc director of
planning and development Ken Woitt.

"While it's very difficult to regulate, certainly they wish to do
everything in their power to encourage these businesses to do business
elsewhere."

The bylaw creates five categories of restricted products: smoking
devices, grinders, digital scales, masking agents, and items featuring
images of drugs, like marijuana leaves.

Businesses will not be allowed to sell items from more than two of the
categories, display restricted items in their windows or sell them to
minors.

Violators would be fined $750 for a first offence and $1,500 for
subsequent violations.

"I have no way to predict the success or the impact it will have on
youth. But I think just having these sorts of things around in every
day life=C2=85 says we accept it. If we don't have it around, it says
something too," said Woitt.

"People make their own choices but if it's not readily within sight or
within arms' length it's a little more difficult to make that choice."

Chad Wentworth, owner of Chad Smoke Shop 420, which sells pipes and
other marijuana-related merchandise, said he questions the city's logic.

"If I'm going to be restricted on some items, obviously another store
is going to be coming into town and carrying those items," he said.

"The only thing it's going to do is take sales away from a legitimate
business that has been in town for eight years."

Wentworth noted that 100 per cent of his inventory is legal for sale
in Canada.

"They're going to get it somewhere if they don't get it at the store,"
he said.

This isn't the first time one of Wentworth's shops has been cracked
down on by municipal officials.

In May 2012, a franchised Chad Smoke Shop in St. Albert was ticketed
and told its business license would be seized after council passed a
bylaw virtually identical to Leduc's.

Chad Smoke Shop challenged that bylaw in court but it was upheld by
the Alberta Court of Appeal in February after a lower court ruled it
unconstitutional.

The Court of Appeal's three-judge panel ruled the bylaw was within St.
Albert's jurisdiction because it contained aspects of both the federal
power over criminal law and the provincial power over licensing and
regulating businesses.

According to the panel, the provincial aspects of the bylaw - which
include the suppression of conditions that are likely to cause crime
and prevention to enforce local standards of morality - were pertinent.

The Court of Queen's Bench had overturned the bylaw in January 2013 on
the grounds it illegally crossed into matters under the Criminal Code.

Wentworth said he would not take the case to the Supreme Court of
Canada.

"Times change and we've got to go with the times," he said, adding the
Leduc store should be removing items to comply with the bylaw.

"If that's what Leduc wants then I guess that's what we'll have to
do."

- - With files from the Edmonton Sun's Tony Blais
- ---
MAP posted-by: Matt