The applicant with the lowest score for each cluster would win the right to move ahead with the permitting process.
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The zoning proposal would restrict medical marijuana caregiver centers within 1,000 feet from schools, parks and churches, and 2,000 feet from other caregiver centers or businesses with a “controlled use” permit, including party stores with liquor licenses.
Jamie Shaw, spokeswoman for the B.C. Compassion Club Society and president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis Dispensaries, said, as expected, her 18-year-old organization will have to apply to the board of variance for special permission to stay within the buffer zones imposed by city staff. The compassion club had a private school, now a “trusted neighbour”, open across the intersection from its storefront four years after it began serving patients, she said.
“They shouldn’t be operating, because they don’t fall within the law, and we shouldn’t be collecting taxes on these businesses that are illegally operating”, Martinez said.
The city also said letters have been sent to another 30 applications that meet zoning requirements, except for the minimum distancing from other pot shops.
And the mayor made good on that promise this week, when the city gave the green light to just 11 of 176 dispensaries that have applied for licences, allowing them to continue with the application process. Victoria and Burnaby are studying Vancouver’s regulations.
The compassion clubs will take much longer to prove to the city they are offering the therapeutic services claimed before they can be licensed, but the first for-profit stores could get their final approvals as early as January. “I’ve been approached by other shops (to participate)”.
Still, the Seattle example doesn’t necessarily bode well for weed retailers, according to Tonia Winchester, a Washington state lawyer who worked on the citizens’ coalition to legalize the drug.
The panel opted instead to asked city attorneys to come up with way to require tax registration certificate applicants to declare “under penalty of perjury” that they comply with Proposition D and are therefore legal dispensaries.
Martinez aides said 67 out of about 100 pot shops in the councilwoman’s San Fernando Valley-area district have been shut down so far due to Proposition D enforcement efforts.
The city has officially sent out its first round of letters ordering the closure of specific marijuana dispensaries.
“You don’t want to reward illegal activity, but you have to be pragmatic”, he said.
THE City of Vancouver announced Monday that Stage One of its processing and evaluation of applications for medical marijuana-related businesses is now complete.
Many B.C. cities, such as Abbotsford and Surrey, say they have no plans to change their restrictive bylaws on medical marijuana outlets.
Abbotsford is taking matters into its own hands.
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Businesses that did not apply for a licence prior to the deadline must close their doors immediately, or be subject to enforcement action.
