FILE - Marijuana plants grow as Julia Ratcliffe, a technical consultant with The Bug Factory, a company that supplies insects for natural pest control, works at the MediJean medical marijuana facility in Richmond, B.C., on Friday March 21, 2014. Kamloops has received its first formal application for a medical marijuana grow operation.
Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck
September 05, 2015 - 11:35 AM
KAMLOOPS – Gateway Industrial Park could potentially be the home of Kamloops’s first medical marijuana grow operation.
“This is a first within the City of Kamloops. While we have had other inquiries this is the only formal application,” development and engineering services director Marvin Kwiatkowski says.
The application is to rezone the property at 8170 Dallas Drive, which is currently zoned industrial. Medical marijuana grow operations are only permitted in heavy industrial areas. The matter is expected to come to council Sept. 29 with a public hearing as early as Oct. 20.
The city has a list of 11 requirements before a grow operation specific rezoning can be considered. These requirements include a ventilation system to deal with offense odour and a location which is at least 150 metres from a residential zone, daycare facility, playground, community centre, school, public park, or anyplace frequented by people under 18-years-old.
The city's planning and development supervisor Eric Beach says while Kamloops could give its rezoning approval, this is not the only hurdle the applicant must overcome.
“The real challenge is the feds,” Beach says. He says the grow ops needs to get a federal license from Health Canada before they are able to operate.
He says it is possible for the city could approve the rezoning but Health Canada not give the business a license.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Dana Reynolds at dreynolds@infonews.ca or call 250-819-6089. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
News from © iNFOnews, 2015