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It will be late spring of 2019 at the earliest before you'll be able to legally buy non-medicinal cannabis in Kelowna.

City planner Ryan Smith confirmed that time line as the city prepares to introduce bylaws that will lay out exactly where storefronts can, and cannot be located.

Council will have that discussion Monday.

Before a business can apply for a business license, it must first go through a rezoning process.

If the bylaws are approved by council, Smith says the rezoning application process will begin Oct. 1, and run through the end of November.

"At the beginning of December, we'll begin evaluating all the rezoning applications we receive," says Smith.

"The ones that score the highest will get to go through our process first."

Smith says the rezoning process will take four to five months to complete.

Then, it will have to go before council and presumably a public hearing before the application can be approved.

After successfully receiving the rezoning approval, businesses would still have to apply for a business license.

Prospective retail owners will also have to pay a premium to have the rezoning application processed.

A normal application costs about $2,000, however, Smith says the city is proposing a $10,000 rezoning fee.

Smith says the city is trying to recoup its costs.

"There has been a lot of staff time to set this up and do reviews on this model. Having staff become familiar with the federal and provincial legislation, and legal time shutting down the illegal dispensaries that have been out there.

"We want to recover all of that."

The city has been taking some flack for its slow roll out of cannabis legislation. Smith says a cautious approach will be better in the long run.

"I think a conservative approach for something new like this, and I think council probably agrees, is the best way to go," he said.

"We don't know what the impact will likely be, we don;t know how many applications we are going to get. I think each one deserves a pretty good look and analysis."

Smith says it's been illegal for so long that to rush a roll out could bring unintended consequences that can;t be undone.

While the city is not entertaining any applications at the moment, Smith says they have had well over 100 inquiries.

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SAJLMFAO Do the moronic conservative reporter, counselors and mayor of East Kelowna not realize that cannabis will be available online as of Oct 17 to everyone of age in Canada including those in Kelowna? And by not opening a shop in East Kelowna means it will be even harder to shut down the illegal shops. Also East Kelowna won't be getting a penny in taxes, so its the tax payers who are the losers, I wonder how this will impact the town's next election eh? What is even funner is West Kelowna a two minute drive will have shops open on Oct 17 as well as the First Nation self governing regions.

The morons in Ontario are doing the same thing, Rob Ford is giving towns a one time chance to permanently ban cannabis shops in their towns. But what he does not explain to them is the fact they will be loosing all the taxes and licensing fees they would have gotten. And BTW its big bucks, instead the taxes from the online sales will all go to the Provencal government of Rob Ford. Stupid is as stupid does.



https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marijuana-spending-1.4797651

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Canadians on track to spend almost $6B on pot this year — most of it the illegal variety

Prices for the drug appears to be falling, too. Across the country, users spent an average of $6.74 per gram on pot in the second quarter. That figure has declined by more than 10 per cent in the past two years, according to its calculations.

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OTTAWA - Statistics Canada says Canadian spending on cannabis increased 1.2 per cent to $5.7 billion on an annualized basis in the second quarter.

Cannabis spending has surpassed the $5.3 billion spent on spirits last year.

Canadians spent $22.5 billion on alcohol overall, including $9.1 billion on beer, $7.2 billion on wine and $900 million on cider. They also consumed $16 billion of tobacco.

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Thats right Canadians spend more on cannabis then we do on liquor.

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"We're seeing a lot of people out there who are accidentally ingesting huge amounts of cannabis. They're not realizing that what they're taking, it is excessive," Dr. Szabo said.

"Nothing's labelled properly. The serving size is not clearly marked so they're eating a whole brownie, not realizing they're only supposed to eat one-eighth of that brownie."

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