Pubdate: Tue, 06 Dec 2016
Source: Penticton Herald (CN BC)
Copyright: 2016 The Okanagan Valley Group of Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.pentictonherald.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/664
Page: A1

PERMITS FOR POT SHOPS WOULD BOOST CITY COFFERS

Licensing fees from 7 marijuana dispensaries could net city more than
$50,000 per year

Granting temporary-use permits to seven marijuana dispensaries could
net the cash-strapped City of Penticton $52,500 in licensing fees,
council is expected to hear at its meeting tonight.

Planning manager Blake Laven in his report recommends the city charge
marijuana dispensaries a $5,000 licensing fee, in addition to other
levies that go along with starting a business.

He's also recommending council attach 10 conditions to the
temporary-use permits, issuance of which would first require
consultation with neighbours. Those conditions include:

* no cannabis products visible from outside the store;

* criminal record checks for all employees showing no drug-related
offences within the past 10 years;

* two staff members on shift at all time;

* no consumption of products on site;

* security plan in place;

* no one under 21 allowed inside;

The temporary-use permits are meant as a stop-gap measure while the
federal government works through the process of legalizing weed.
Council ordered staff to prepare recommendations after at least four
dispensaries began operating without business licences. To date, the
city has collected $16,700 in fines from those shops, some of which
are still doing business.

Laven notes seven proposed dispensaries in Penticton "may seem like a
lot," but it works out to one shop for every 4,800 residents, far less
than one for every 3,300 in Victoria and one for every 3,400 in Vancouver.

"How many is too many? Staff, at this time, are recommending that
council not set a number, but deal with each dispensary location on
its own merits," he adds.

Six of the seven prospective dispensaries are located in the downtown
core: three on Westminster Avenue and two each on Main and Martin streets.

Council is also expected tonight to approve a deal with the developer
of an apartment complex at 175 Kinney Ave., that guarantees all 119
units will be kept as rental housing for the first 10 years after
construction is finished. The agreement is a condition of council's
rezoning of the property.

Both the Kinney Avenue and marijuana issues will be addressed during
council's evening session, which begins at 6 p.m..

The afternoon session, which starts at 1 p.m., will begin with
committee of the whole, where consultants from Urban Systems are
expected to recommend council spend $40,000 on another study to help
usher in a new charge to fund improvements to the city's storm water
collection system.

Once into its regular meeting, council will then hear a staff
recommendation to charge residents $3.50 for a tag to put out an extra
bag of garbage or $62.50 for a book of 25 tags.

Elected officials will also consider a request to name a new road in a
subdivision off Evergreen Drive as Hawthorn Drive, plus a suggestion
to place notice on title of 144 Williamson Pl., and formalize an
unofficial records-retention policy currently in use by city staff.
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MAP posted-by: Matt