City reviews progress for two Cannabis retail applications; restating support for High Culture and issuing business licence for BC Cannabis

Prince Rupert City Council received a review of where things stand with a pair of retail Cannabis applications for the community, as Hans Seidemann the Manager of Community Development provided an update on the state of application for the High Culture location at Five Corners and that of the BC Government Cannabis store proposal for the BC Liquor Store location  in the city.

Dealing with the High Culture application first, Mr. Seidemann noted that the city was required to restate it's positive recommendation for that commercial initiative, with the province requesting some additional information from the city before it would move the process ahead.

The main theme of the correspondences from the province were that the city needed to outline the reasons that it has approved the application.

When asked why the city had not caught that at element earlier, Mr. Seidemann noted that the city had not been provided with any indication that their evaluation manner might be insufficient, adding that the process as designed by the city is sufficient, but just requires more information to express their intent.

Mr. Cunningham also asked if this would mean any additional delay for the Park Avenue proponents who were the first in line with the city for applications, he was advised that the opinion of staff is that there would be no additional delays and how the High Culture application would "get across the line shortly"

Mayor Brain observed that the call for restatement by the province was what he described as a hiccup for the new provincial industry.

The second application was a little less complicated but generated a fair bit of discussion, with Council asked to issue a business licence for the proposed BC Cannabis location at the city's British Columbia Liquor Store location.

Mr. Seidemann outlined how the requirements for the government stores differ from those of private operators, though he added that the city uses the same approach when evaluating all applications.

He recounted some of the background towards the BC Cannabis application such as their security and fire plans, which have been deemed successful.

The Manager of Community Development also observed how there had been no comments for or against the proposed store delivered to City hall during a recent consultation period.

Councillor Cunningham picked up on some themes from the security and fire plans, asking why Council had not been provided with those reports prior to the review, with Mr. Seidemann noting that the current cannabis policy for the city did not require council members to review those elements.

Mayor Brain added that city trusts their staff on those segments of the process, something Mr. Cunningham agreed with, noting however that for the first application they had received such information as part of their overview of the application process.

Mr. Seidemann then provided a few more details as to how the city approaches the review of each licence and what the role of Council is in that process.

As for the Cannabis BC application for a business licence, Council voted to support the issuance of the licence with the process now moving forward for further action.

You can view the back and forth on both applications from the City's Video archive, starting at the thirteen minute mark. 

Both reports to Council are also available from the city's Agenda package for the June 10th session, starting on page 11




A wider overview of the two discussions can be found from our Council Timeline feature here.

More notes on Council themes from Monday can be found here, while a larger overview of past Council topics can be explored on our Council Discussion page.

A look at the past history of the city's cannabis policies and retail applications can be found from this archive page.


Cross posted from the North Coast Review.