By ROY WOOD
Anyone seeking to open a cannabis store in Osoyoos will likely need to make their case before council and be subject to a public hearing, according to a directive approved today by council.
The majority of council agreed to direct staff to prepare and bring back for a consideration a bylaw requiring so-called “site-specific” zoning for cannabis retail outlets.
According to an earlier report from planning director Gina MacKay, site-specific zoning “would allow council to consider all issues (that) could be related to that specific site, such as the uses of adjacent property, access, parking, etc.”
The alternative would have been to include cannabis retailing as an allowed activity in one or more of the existing commercial zones.
Councillor CJ Rhodes, who led the movement toward site-specific, said attempting to address all the relevant issues in the existing zoning infrastructure is simply too complicated.
Councillor Mike Campol was the sole dissenter, objecting to the extra meetings, public hearings and staff time and resources required for the site-specific process.
Council also directed staff to prepare “policy development site-selection options for retail cannabis locations.”
The list of options will look at things like: the size of the buffer between schools or parks and pot stores; whether they’ll be allowed on Main Street; if such stores must be stand-alone or may be part of a larger building; and which of the current zones could include marijuana retailing.
Out of the discussions around these options will come a list of criteria a potential store will need to meet before it will be eligible to apply for licensing and site-specific zoning.
The possession and sale of cannabis for recreational use becomes legal in Canada on October 17.