Georgina’s decision to opt out of pot shops lights up social media frenzy
Many disappointed decision flew in face of 73 per cent of survey respondents voting in favour of the move

Yorkregion.com
Jan 17, 2019
Heidi Riedner

Reaction to the town’s decision to opt out of local pot shops was swift and furious.

Many took to social media to post their dissatisfaction Wednesday almost immediately after council voted in a split decision to opt out of allowing retail cannabis stores, despite the fact 73 per cent of the 2,462 respondents to a town survey either strongly or somewhat supported the move.

Many called out Mayor Margaret Quirk and councillors Dan Fellini, Dave Neeson and Dave Harding -- who voted to opt out -- for their decision to “not respect democracy”.

“We expect our voices to matter,” posted one.

“It’s like nobody gave a crap about the survey, so what was the point?” posted another. “Why ask us?”

Former town employee and Ward 4 candidate in October’s municipal election, Greta Zink, wondered why public sentiment wasn’t taken into account on an issue that could bring revenue to the town.

“How is it 300 or 350 out of 19,000 households voted to spend $30 million -- which is now at $42 million -- on a MURC, but approximately 2,500 residents out of just over 45,000 have their vote fall on deaf ears to opt in for a revenue generating shop?”

Despite acknowledging the survey garnered the most public engagement to date, Quirk added “being unscientific, you don’t know if somebody is submitting multiple (times) either way, so we don’t know if somebody put in 10 surveys at the library and submitted 20 surveys online. There’s no way we can track that.”

Ward 1 Counc. Mike Waddington -- who voted against opting out alongside Regional Councillor Rob Grossi and Ward 4 Counc. Frank Sebo -- said he made it very clear during the election that he would follow the rule of the people despite any personal reservations regarding the issue.

“I make no hesitation about my thoughts that the legalization of marijuana was a bad idea, I still do, but that horse has left the barn at this point. Despite not being a scientific survey, the results that we got were definitely in favour of it, so I have to stand by that,” he said.

Key among a number of reasons raised by those who voted to opt out included the fact the municipality couldn’t back out from its decision.

“Once you opt in, you can’t opt back out,” Quirk said. “There’s no going back and that concerns me.”

The municipality having no control over locations other than province’s regulation they are located at least 150 metres away from schools and as of yet undefined regulatory controls over stores were others.

“We already have an issue with drugs in Georgina,” Fellini said, adding retail stores “wouldn’t be a step forward for the town” in his opinion.

Legalization and the retail option “won’t take away the drug dealer on the corner,” Quirk added.

Promised 50/50 revenue splits of excise duty over $100 million from upper tier governments to municipalities that opted in before the province’s Jan. 22 deadline to help with education and enforcement was another factor.

Since there are no clear details as to funding formulas defining how much individual municipalities would receive by opting in now, Georgina can wait to see how the first year of stores goes over before making a decision with still so many “unknowns”, Quirk said.

By opting out now, with the option to opt in past the deadline, Georgina will only receive a total $29,000 in funding.

When Bradford West Gwillimbury wrestled with the same concerns, its council pointed out issues of public consumption, police and bylaw enforcement would have to be dealt with regardless if there were stores or not, so they may as well get a piece of provincial funding to assist with those associated costs.

Georgina is also not eligible for one of only six stores available in the GTA under the first round of licenses anyway because of the minimum 50,000 population requirement, Quirk added.

Other municipalities with below threshold populations have opted in, however, including Brock Township, Whitchurch-Stouffville and Bradford West Gwillimbury.

The rest of York Region, except for Aurora and Vaughan which will vote Jan. 21, opted out.

Waddington argued opting in now allowed Georgina to “watch the first phase" even without a store, as well as the benefit of some funding for education and enforcement.

“And if it floods the market with cleaner weed, I am going to take that as a small win”.

Fellini noted for those who wanted to use cannabis, they could still do so either by purchasing it online or growing their own since each household is allowed to cultivate up to four plants, which also takes care of any fears of marijuana being laced with fentanyl or any other drug.

Ward 4 Counc. Frank Sebo reiterated his stance, held from the beginning of the debate months ago, that marijuana is legal, revenue generation from its sale is a good thing and if Georgina doesn’t allow for legal storefronts, that only “drives our residents out of town to another town where it is available, or online, or they can keep buying it from their black market dealer across from the school … where it is readily available now.”

He added opting out totally defeats the purpose of legalization.

Opting out on retail sales of a legal product is somewhat like the prohibition era, Grossi said since "you might be able to consume it here, but you can’t buy it here".

It also seemed “odd” to Grossi that the focus was on where can you buy a product that in its simplest form you would be rolling into a cigarette or joint and smoking it when what we should really be talking about is “how do we, as a community, become a host for the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars in research and development, cultivation and production of products that in a few short years will be on the shelves of our drug stores and our grocery stores”.

The reality of the situation is Georgina has an economic development opportunity and a chance to move forward in this community, he added.

Because of that, Grossi wanted assurances from the town’s planning department that the interim control bylaw, which was also passed Wednesday, would not prohibit those type of opportunities, especially on the Keswick Business Park’s lands.

Aurora Cannabis’ Bradford facility, which occupies over 200,000 sq. ft. of cultivation, research and development, is one such example.

It employs 350 people and brought $100 million in investment to Bradford.

It also prompted BWG’s deputy mayor to say it would be hypocritical for the town to allow the manufacture of marijuana, but not its sale in retail stores.

Georgina’s interim control bylaw will prohibit cultivation facilities in agricultural zones for the next year to allow the town to develop its zoning approach while studying potential impacts, such as issues with noise and odour -- largely concerned with outdoor cultivation -- that have already cropped up in areas such as Cannington and Norfolk County.

“I just want to make sure we don’t hamstring someone who wants to invest in this community and has the potential to do so (but) we’re putting a blockade in place for them to do so,” Grossi said.

The town’s director of planning, Harold Lenters, said they would have to go through the same planning process anyway even with the bylaw.

“Like any application for new development, we’d look at it from a number of different perspectives”.