Wheatland County amends bylaws to allow cannabis stores

By Sean Feagan, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Wheatland County has amended its land use bylaws to allow for cannabis retail outlets in certain rural and hamlet land use districts.
On March 24, Wheatland County council voted to amend its land use bylaws to add cannabis stores as a discretionary use within county lands zoned as commercial highway districts, hamlet mixed-use districts and hamlet commercial districts.
No member of the public raised objection to the proposed amendments during the public hearing portion of the council meeting. While the council meeting was conducted virtually as a teleconference in response to COVID-19, members of the public still could participate in the hearing in person at the county offices or call in.
The bylaws now stipulate minimum setback distances that cannabis stores must be sited away from schools, daycares and health care facilities. Wheatland County will “follow provincial and federal government and setbacks,” by requiring a 100-metre setback from these institutions, said Amber Link, Wheatland County Reeve.
“We did have the option to modify those setbacks, but we just decided to follow the best practices that the other jurisdictions identified,” said Link. “By keeping those regulations to a minimum, part of our rationale was that that would avoid any risk of contravening any provincial or federal regulations.”
Before a retail outlet can open, it must first provide a provincial license to the county. The new bylaws also specify existing land uses where the sale of cannabis is not permitted, including convenience stores and farmers markets.
The amendments prohibit cannabis consumption at all retail outlets, in accordance with existing provincial and federal regulations.
The bylaw amendments were informed from a public consultation survey administered online from the end of October to mid-December 2019, said Link. The survey had 88 respondents, representing approximately one per cent of the county’s population.
A total of 43 of the respondents said they did not want stores within county boundaries.
The findings of the survey were presented during a Jan. 7 planning and priorities meeting. The bylaw amendments were drafted shortly thereafter.
Link said she was not currently aware of any cannabis outfit looking into opening a store within the county, but that county planning staff may be working with proponents that are early in the development process.