Pubdate: Thu, 21 Jan 2016
Source: Vancouver Courier (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 Vancouver Courier
Contact:  http://www.vancourier.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/474
Author: Mike Howell
Page: A9

FIRST MARIJUANA SHOP LICENCE EXPECTED IN THE SPRING

The City of Vancouver is still a few months away from making Canadian 
history by being the first municipality in this country to issue a 
business licence to an illegal marijuana dispensary, according to the 
city's chief licence inspector.

That's because city staff continues to sort through applications, 
collect feedback from neighbours of pot shops and wait for results of 
appeals by applicants initially rejected under the new regulations. 
Many dispensary operators are also looking for or found new locations 
for their businesses, said Andreaa Toma, who is overseeing the 
regulations brought in by city council in June 2015.

"We could be looking at issuing the first business licence probably 
in the spring of this year," she said.

That first licence will likely go to one of 12 applicants who cleared 
the city's first hurdle of being at least 300 metres away from 
schools, community centres and neighbourhood houses. The 12 
applicants will be notified possibly within two weeks whether they 
can proceed to the next step.

That step involves the city examining an applicant's past business 
practices and whether he or she has been in trouble with the law. 
Signing a "good neighbour" agreement and meeting building codes 
related to health, fire and signs are also required to get a licence.

The 12 locations under review are spread across the city, with three 
on Kingsway, two on Main Street and others on East 41st Avenue, East 
57th Avenue, West 10th Avenue, West 4th Avenue, East Broadway, 
Commercial Drive and Renfrew Street.

The Herb Co. Society is one of the applicants and operates a 
dispensary at 1189 Main St., across the street from Thornton Park. 
One of the co-owners, who identified himself as Sunny and declined to 
provide his surname, said feedback from neighbours about the 
dispensary has been mixed.

"There's been some positive and some negative," he said, noting he 
and his partners recently purchased the dispensary from a previous 
owner. "We received letters from some businesses that said they 
haven't had any interruptions with their business and they're not 
against our application."

Sunny applied to the city for a $30,000 annual licence to operate a 
retail medical marijuana outlet. The dispensary is only accessible by 
members who require a doctor's certificate to obtain Herb Co.'s 
marijuana products, he said.

"We don't sell to anybody. I want a business licence, I want to 
operate in a proper manner," said Sunny, when asked why he applied 
for a licence when some others in the city haven't bothered. "I only 
took over the dispensary after the city said they were going to do 
the business licences."

The Main Street dispensary is among an estimated 100 illegal pot 
shops in the city. In June 2015, city council voted 8-3 to proceed 
with a staff proposal that calls for $30,000 annual licence fees 
($1,000 for non-profit "compassion clubs"), criminal record checks 
and zoning regulations that prohibit pot shops from operating within 
300 metres of schools, community centres, neighbourhood houses and 
each other. Though council's purpose is to regulate the business - 
not the marijuana - the new regulations also allow for the sale of 
marijuana oils, tinctures and capsules.

Toma said the city continues to sort out which pot shops located in 
so-called clusters of dispensaries will be granted the right to 
proceed with an application for a development permit, which is one of 
the steps to getting a business licence.

"There has to be one winner within all of these clusters and I 
believe we have about six or seven clusters," Toma said.

The "winners" will be determined by the city's demerit point system. 
For example, if a pot shop has a history of poor business practices, 
has had police execute search warrants at the business, then the city 
would penalize them for four points. If demerit points are equal in a 
cluster of pot shops, a lottery would take place.

When the city announced in October 2015 that at least 11 applicants 
had passed the first hurdle to getting a business licence, it noted 
more than 130 had not met zoning requirements. But Toma said those 
applicants are still in the system and some indicated they have found 
new locations, which allows them to begin the process to seek a 
business licence.

There are also many - Toma didn't have a count at the time of the 
interview - that have chosen to go before the Board of Variance to 
argue their case to remain in their present location. The first 
hearings are expected to begin in mid-February and could run until 
November, if the board keeps to five applicants per meeting.

Meanwhile, Toma said the public should know the city has taken 
enforcement against at least two pot shops that did not apply for a 
business licence. She said more enforcement will come, saying "it's 
not that we're not enforcing, it's just that a lot of these folks are 
in stream in our process."
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom