Olds town council has decided how applications for cannabis retail stores will be handled and has relaxed the rules on where they can be located.
During last week’s regularly scheduled Olds council meeting, a previously defeated bylaw about cannabis retail was passed.
The bylaw pertains to whether cannabis retail should be labelled as permitted use or discretionary use and it was decided that it would be labelled as permitted.
What this means is that town staff can make approvals of applications for cannabis retail as long as the applicant meets the regulations and requirements for that specific use.
If it had been labelled discretionary, applications would be sent to the Municipal Planning Commission (MPC) for approval, which potentially would increase the time it would take for the applications to be approved.
This wasn’t the only thing that was decided at council that will affect cannabis retail stores; so was the decision to amend some of the separation distances in order to make things less restrictive.
“Basically the bigger decision was to change the setback from 150 metres for municipal reserves to zero and for parks from 150 to 100 (metres). That means most of the commercial areas will be allowed to establish commercial cannabis stores if they wish,” chief administrative officer Michael Merritt said.
This decision means that cannabis retail stores face no distance setbacks from municipal reserves and will only be set back by 100 metres from parks.
So far, two applications for cannabis stores have been approved by the town. They are Canna Cabana and Cannabis Cowboy.
