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Severn council gets earful from residents about 'pot house'

Township working on zoning bylaw amendment, but its hands are tied when it comes to those growing personal medicinal cannabis
2019-03-22 Severn cannabis zoning 1
Severn Coun. Mark Taylor, left, listens as Coun. John Betsworth speaks during a meeting this week. Nathan Taylor/OrilliaMatters

Severn Township is one step closer to having more say over where and how cannabis production facilities can operate.

However, the zoning bylaw amendment approved by the planning and development committee this week doesn’t give the township any power over what council and residents see as the real problem — individuals growing their own cannabis for medicinal use.

Residents who attended the meeting aired their concerns about a location near Big Chief Road and Highway 11, where medicinal cannabis is being grown legally.

Neither the growers nor Health Canada were required to inform the township about the operation, which is near residences.

“I’m very upset that something like that was erected and quietly put in,” said Alastair Dickie, who lives nearby.

He said there are plenty of youth in the area, and “the kids smell that.”

The odour is what prompted complaints and ultimately made the township aware of the operation.

“You’re entitled to step out your back door and breathe clean, fresh air,” Mayor Mike Burkett told the audience, adding the township would “take whatever measures and means to fix it.”

But, its hands are tied.

Until 2014, users of medicinal cannabis could grow their own plants at home if they had a licence from Health Canada. That authority then moved to physicians, who were to prescribe the marijuana.

That was challenged in court, as people wanted to grow their own. In February 2016, the Supreme Court overturned the part of the law that restricted users from growing their own plants. In response, Health Canada created Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR).

Simcoe North MP Bruce Stanton, who is trying to help the township get answers, has said people are exploiting a “loophole” in the ACMPR. They can have four separate certificates from Health Canada and grow all of the plants — sometimes hundreds or more than 1,000 — in the same location.

Burkett told the audience at the meeting about his “very disheartening conversation” recently with someone at Health Canada who revealed little about the operation, citing privacy, and said there were no regulations around odour.

“What I’m hearing is there’s nothing that can be done. That’s very frustrating,” resident Michelle Dickie said. “If you want to put a shed up, you have to put up a (sign) so people know.”

When it comes to individual production of medicinal cannabis, Health Canada only has to inform law enforcement, said Andrew Plunkett, Severn’s acting chief administrative officer.

If Health Canada receives “significant concerns,” it might send an inspector, he added.

“If everyone here does the same thing, we may be able to get Health Canada to step in,” he said.

Luciano Cristao, who also lives near the Big Chief Road operation, moved here two years ago. He said he wouldn't done so if he had known about it then. He worries about how it might affect his property value.

"We smell it every morning and every night," he said. "At the end of the day, who wants to buy a house near a pot house?"

The zoning bylaw amendment, which will have to be approved by council before it goes into effect, includes the following provisions:

  • A cannabis production facility cannot contain an accessory dwelling;

  • No outdoor storage allowed;

  • A setback of 150 metres — for a facility that is equipped with an air-treatment system — from educational institutions, day nurseries, places of worship, residential dwellings and areas zoned institutional, open space zone or residential;

  • A setback of 300 metres — for a facility that is not equipped with an air-treatment system — from the above-mentioned areas.


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Nathan Taylor

About the Author: Nathan Taylor

Nathan Taylor is the desk editor for Village Media's central Ontario news desk in Simcoe County and Newmarket.
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