Sudbury city council votes unanimously in favour of retail cannabis stores

Sudbury has taken the first step in allowing cannabis retailers in the city.

City councillors voted unanimously in favour of allowing a recreational cannabis store to open in the city. Recreational cannabis is legal in Canada, but in Ontario, people can only purchase it through the province's online store.

The province says brick and mortar stores will be opening next spring. Currently, municipalities have until Jan. 22 to decide if they want marijuana stores in their communities.

The stores will be privately operated, but licensed and regulated by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario.

As a result, municipalities will not have much of a say in the locations or sizes of the store, Sudbury's general manager of corporate services, Kevin Fowke said.

"The feedback we gathered through our surveying indicated that the highest sensitivities were around school churches, parks, playgrounds, youth facilities, rec centres and libraries," he said.

"Those concerns are mimicked in the [Alcohol and Gaming Commission's] regulations so we should have a fairly meeting of the minds there."

Fowke says the city has already outlined recommendations on where it would like to locate stores, but that was under the previous-Liberal government.

"Of course, they don't have to take those into consideration," he said.

"They have a process by which any perspective cannabis retail store would be evaluated. There's a strict set of regulations in place."

Fowke added a public consultation period will be scheduled after the potential sites are chosen.

"What will happen is municipal governments and the public will have a 15 day notification period of a proposed store site to receive public input," he explained.

That system works in a way that's similar to how restaurants and bars publicly post their liquor applications.

To make the decision on whether or not to opt in, an online survey and telephone survey was done to collect public input.