Pubdate: Thu, 19 May 2016
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Page: S1
Copyright: 2016 The Globe and Mail Company
Contact:  http://www.theglobeandmail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/168
Author: Mike Hager

VANCOUVER ISSUES FIRST BUSINESS LICENCE TO A POT DISPENSARY

Vancouver has issued its first business licence to an illegal
marijuana dispensary, as the city presses ahead with a landmark set of
municipal bylaws in Canada aimed at regulating the sector.

The Wealth Shop was granted a licence this week to operate in a
shopping complex on West 10th Avenue in the tony Point Grey
neighbourhood, near the University of British Columbia.

Malik Sayadi, who has been in charge of hiring for the store, said the
group of young local entrepreneurs behind the dispensary likely
benefited by not joining in on the green rush of the past several years.

Instead, they quietly gained support from their prospective neighbours
and jumped through all the bureaucratic hurdles to get the licence, he
said.

"Instead of trying to become the first ones there, we just went
through all the proper procedures and worked closely with everybody
that wanted us to work with them," Mr. Sayadi said.

The Wealth Shop is also one of a number of B.C.-based dispensaries
expanding eastward, with a store opening soon in Toronto's Forest Hill
neighbourhood.

As a for-profit dispensary, the store must pay an annual licensing fee
of $30,000 to the City of Vancouver. Pot shops can pay $1,000 for a
licence if they are run as compassion clubs, which must be owned by
non-profit organizations and offer other health services on site such
as acupuncture or nutritional advice.

Though several B.C. communities have issued one-off business licences
to dispensaries over the past year, Vancouver is the first city in
Canada to create a set of bylaws regulating the sector.

Councillor Kerry Jang, ruling Vision Vancouver party's lead on
cannabis issues, says the historic bylaw has rolled out pretty
smoothly so far and will ensure that medical-marijuana patients
continue to have proper access to enough dispensaries, despite plans
to close all but a third of the pot shops in the city.

"We are finding a space for medical marijuana but at the same time
making sure our neighbourhoods are balanced," Mr. Jang said Wednesday
on the way to Toronto for a speaking engagement.

All dispensaries and compassion clubs across Canada still operate
outside the federal government's medical marijuana program, which
permits about two dozen industrial-scale growers to sell dried flowers
and bottles of cannabis oil directly to patients through the mail.
Public pressure mounted on the city to regulate these shops after
their numbers rose exponentially from just 14 in 2012 to more around
100 when city council began public hearings into crafting a dispensary
bylaw last spring.

Provincial politicians have been pushing for pot to be sold through
liquor stores or pharmacies - not dispensaries - once recreational use
is legalized next spring. Regardless of where recreational cannabis is
eventually distributed, the City of Vancouver has said any
face-to-face sales of the drug must follow these rules.

Vancouver is expected to issue several other business licences in the
coming weeks, with two shops awaiting the final stamp of approval and
12 applicants making it to the second of three licensing stages.
Meanwhile, 30 other shops have closed since bylaw officers began
issuing violation tickets at the end of last month and another 61
remain subject to enforcement, a city spokesperson said. So far, 139
shops have been issued $250 tickets, with only seven paid by offending
pot shops.

Mr. Sayadi wouldn't say where the Wealth Shop gets its cannabis
products. Any cannabis sold in these stores is technically illegal
even if it is bought from home growers approved under the old federal
medical marijuana system, many of whom are still producing under an
ongoing federal court injunction. That's because these production
licences are tied to individual patients - not businesses.

As Vancouver's pot-shop sector begins to drastically contract under
the city's new bylaws, Toronto has witnessed its own explosion of
dispensaries since the federal Liberals won last fall's election.

Toronto Mayor John Tory recently vowed to crack down on the more than
100 stores now operating in his city and instructed city staff to
quickly come up with recommendations for regulating the sector. This
week, numerous Toronto pot shops stated that bylaw officers had been
by to warn them that violation tickets would be issued soon.

Mr. Jang said Toronto's bylaw department quizzed their Vancouver
counterparts last week on ongoing enforcement action in the West Coast
city.  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D