Olds town councillors have directed administration to further examine the town's position regarding the continued operation of Chad's Smokeshop 420.
The direction came out of a discussion at the Aug. 15 policies and priorities meeting in response to a letter from the City of St. Albert that had also been copied to the Town of Strathmore, City of Leduc, Town of Athabasca, County of Strathcona, Town of Sylvan Lake and City of Brooks.
“Because the letter stated a request from another municipality, we didn't want to just dismiss it,” Mayor Judy Dahl said.
“We wanted to find out what position Olds is in. Are we facing the same type of situation, and what are the other municipalities facing? Is it something we truly need to investigate or do we just leave it to the powers above – the RCMP – to continue to do their own work on?”
The letter, dated July 22, stated that the City of St. Albert council recently passed a resolution with respect to specific businesses in each of the municipalities that was party to the letter.
The resolution calls for the city's administration to bring back proposals by Oct. 31 outlining “every possible measure that can be taken within the City of St. Albert to control or prohibit the selling of paraphernalia by local businesses that is best connected to the illegal drug industry.
“This resolution shall include but not be limited to: police involvement, business licensing options including business licence bylaw, land planning/zoning and the Land Use Bylaw, inspection requirements, age restrictions, advertising limitations, unique fees, North American Industry Classification System (which collects and analyzes statistical data related to the economy) opportunities, drug dog sniffing.”
The letter, signed by Mayor Nolan Crouse, asked the seven other councils to forward their experiences with these types of businesses.
“Our council wishes to deal with every facet of this matter short term and into the future such that the municipality may address it to the best of our capability,” Crouse stated.
He added: “I encourage you to visit your Smoke Shop; you may be surprised.”
Staff Sgt. Kevin Morton told councillors several warrants were executed on the Chad Smokeshop 420 locations, including the one in Olds on May 17. The then-owner was charged with several offences stemming from the Olds search including possession of prohibited weapons and promoting or selling instructional material for consuming or facilitating consumption of illicit drugs. As a result of a similar search in Sylvan Lake, the Town of Sylvan Lake revoked the business's licence to operate, Morton said.
Morton suggested that if several prohibited weapons were seized and subsequently more were found, there may be grounds for the business's legal right to operate to be called into question. At that point, he said, the town could decide to intervene.
“Then I would suggest the Town of Olds has the ability to close it down,” he said.
Currently, Morton said the town's Land Use Bylaw and Business Licensing Bylaw aren't prescriptive enough to allow it to shut down businesses that council deems inappropriate. He said the Town of Sylvan Lake was able to pull the business licence because the bylaw was written in such a way that the town was able to do it there.
Morton said the business is allowed to exist because some of the merchandise sold in the shops has legal uses other than simply aiding in illicit drug consumption. Because of that ambiguity, it makes it difficult for the town to shut the business down – if council desires – without the bylaw being changed.
“Those articles, instead of grinding coffee, could grind marijuana,” Morton said.
Mayor Judy Dahl suggested the town do further research on the issue and get both RCMP and administration involvement. She said all the chief administrators of each of the municipalities – in consultation with councils and RCMP detachments – should work together to share information.
“One of the recommendations that I suggested is that the letter be taken back to the leadership team of the Town of Olds for further discussion to see how it applies to the Town of Olds, firstly.
“Secondly, that the mayors and CAOs and sergeants of the detachments have a conference call and discuss the information together, as a whole, to see if there's some synergies that perhaps we might not be able to see, being that we don't know the full information with other municipalities,” she said.
Dahl said council discussed the issue as a courtesy to the City of St. Albert, which requested other councils look into the situation in their areas. At this point, Dahl said Olds council isn't as far along in the process as St. Albert council, and still needs to do some work before any action could be taken.
“I don't think we're at that stage yet. We're just in the investigation stage. It sounds like to me that the St. Albert council has already discussed this … amongst themselves. Certainly we're not at that stage. We're not here to prejudge anything. We can't judge something if we haven't reviewed or investigated it first,” she said.
Neither Chad Wentworth, the former owner of Chad's Smokeshop 420, nor Dustin Drover, the current owner, could be reached for comment last week.
