It may be acceptable to hand out puppies on a first-come, first- served basis, but the same can’t be said for marijuana dispensary licences, Vancouver lawyer Robert Laurie told Victoria councillors this past week.
Laurie was speaking on behalf of Dominic Truong, who wants to open a dispensary called Pure Releaf at 510-512 Yates St.
His application for rezoning and licensing was deferred because another dispensary — Trees, already operating at 546 Yates St. — is located in the same block and applied for licensing first.
Under city policy, dispensaries are not to be located within 200 metres of each other.
Truong filed his application about a month after the Trees application was filed, Laurie said.
“Quick and easy solutions such as a first-come, first-served policy might work if you’re giving away a puppy, but I think the regulation of dispensaries is certainly more complicated than that,” he said.
Laurie noted that the policy allows council latitude, saying a reduced distance might be warranted in locations such as a large urban village, town centre or downtown.
The city put in the 200-metre limit in an attempt to avoid a proliferation of marijuana retailers in some areas.
Laurie said it’s clear the city wants to avoid “an undesirable concentration” of cannabis retailers, but that clearly is not the case with Truong’s application.
“We don’t even have a concentration yet, let alone an undesirable one,” he said, noting these were the first two applications in the city.
In an interview, Laurie said both should move to public hearing.
“We wanted to highlight that it’s a completely unfair situation and [that] without any understanding of the history or knowledge of the operator and what their intentions, history and operating practices are, you can’t really make a fair decision,” he said.
Laurie said Truong has a successful operating history in Vancouver, where he has a licence pending. He has not opened an outlet in Victoria “and yet is being penalized on grounds of fairness because he did not get his application in on time before another operator, who has opened illegally and is operating,” Laurie said.
Coun. Geoff Young, who has expressed concerns about the 200-metre policy, had some sympathy for Laurie’s comments.
“I agree with him from the point of view of common sense and reasonableness,” Young said. “It’s a completely different approach from one we ever do use for rezoning. It is the one that we, admittedly, have had to use for liquor stores.”
Meanwhile, councillors were to decide whether to send another marijuana retail operation to public hearing even though it’s technically too close to a school.
Under city policy, dispensaries must be at least 200 metres from a school. Farmacy Dispensary, 3055 Scott St., had applied for a rezoning to continue its operation in an existing commercial area.
Farmacy is 119 metres from the property line at Lansdowne Middle School’s sports field, though both city staff and the applicant point out that the dispensary is 398 metres away from the main school building.
Staff had recommending sending the application forward, but the application was withdrawn by Farmacy prior to consideration by councillors at this week’s committee of the whole.
