Nicole Thompson, Canadian Press Published Saturday, May 21, 2022, 2:23 PM EDT Last Updated, Saturday, May 21, 2022, 5:20 PM EDT
LONDON, Ont. “Liberals and the New Democrats in Ontario are committed to reviewing the cannabis store licensing model, which they say doesn’t work, a problem Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford said the market would solve.”
Groups of cannabis stores have sprung up in some communities, while other Ontario municipalities have banned retailers altogether, leading to what some describe as unequal access to drugs across the province.
“This is a significant challenge in many communities,” Liberal leader Stephen Del Duca said on Saturday during a campaign halt in western Toronto. “You literally drive around … other parts of GTA and elsewhere and you see that.”
He pointed to other jurisdictions where there are minimum distances between potted shops.
“We would pursue the same,” Del Duca said, noting that municipalities will continue to participate in the process.
He described the grouping as a “side effect” of the progressive Conservative government’s approach to the spread of legalized cannabis.
The previous Liberal government, voted in 2018, planned to open 40 government-run cannabis stores by the summer of the same year, expanding the network to 150 by 2020.
The Tories changed the cannabis retail model because they said expanding the number of stores and switching to a private system would better meet demand and limit black market sales.
Hundreds of shops have opened since then, some just around the corner.
“It’s not good enough,” Del Duca said of Ford’s system. “Is this just a random random process?” It’s not good enough. “
But Ford said clustering is a temporary problem that market forces will solve without government intervention.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s cannabis or another type of store. The market will take care of that. There is no way to group each type of business side by side. It’s like merging six stores. There will be two who can survive, “he said at a campaign stop in London, Ont., On Saturday.
As for municipalities without cannabis stores, Ford said it was their prerogative.
“I leave this to the municipalities. “No one knows their community better than the municipalities,” he said.
NDP leader Andrea Horvat agreed that municipalities should be involved in cannabis decisions, but said he would resume discussions on the group.
“The most I hear about this particular problem is the concern of communities and municipalities about getting ahead of this type of retailer,” she said.
“I’m not afraid to look at all this. I think it needs to be done. “
The NDP said it would give municipalities more influence in the licensing process, for example by allowing them to limit the number of cannabis stores in one block.
Marit Stiles, an NDP lawmaker currently seeking re-election in Davenport, introduced a private member bill last year that she said would make the cannabis licensing process more in line with licensing. of alcohol.
Michael Armstrong, a business professor at Brock University who studies cannabis market data, said limiting the number of cannabis retailers they can open in a particular area may have prevented the grouping three years ago when stores began operating. open.
“If you put a limit now, well, places that have clusters, it’s too late to change that. And places that don’t have clusters are unlikely to get them, “he said.
Armstrong has partly blamed progressive Conservative policies on the grouping issue, noting that the Ford government requires those seeking a license to sell cannabis to have a store location when applying.
“(Candidates) were given a location to put in their application without realizing that there are a bunch of other entrepreneurs who have chosen many similar places because everyone thought, ‘Okay, I want a busy street. I want a shopping area. “I would like it to be in the center somehow, and maybe where there are a lot of young people, because this kind of demographic is more likely to buy my product,” he said.
He said the situation had worsened when the government froze the issuance of new licenses for a cannabis store for a year.
“Because of the government’s delays, the grouping we probably would have had gotten a lot worse than we would have if they hadn’t had such a long freeze,” he said.
But Armstrong also expressed concern about giving municipalities primary rights to decide on cannabis outlets, noting that some local authorities may use such powers to effectively limit new stores to areas that are not convenient for customers. .
“There are still a lot of people in Ontario, a lot of municipal politicians, who really don’t feel good about cannabis stores, generally licensed legal cannabis,” he said.
“What these municipalities could do is introduce zoning restrictions that are so strict that they will not have cannabis shops in principle or will only allow cannabis shops in industrial areas.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on May 21, 2022.
-with files by Maan Alhmidi and Jessica Smith in Toronto.
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