City launches consultation on four designated cannabis consumption sites

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With Canada-wide cannabis legalization less than two months away, city hall wants to know how Calgarians feel about four areas it’s proposing as designated spots where people would be able smoke pot in public.

If approved by council, the four areas would be exempt from the city’s Cannabis Consumption Bylaw regulations, which prohibit smoking, vaping and eating marijuana products in public. The city will launch a public engagement process on Monday and provide the locations of the proposed sites.

The proposal to allow designated pot zones was approved by council in late June, following concerns that a blanket public ban on cannabis use would leave those living in non-smoking multi-family dwellings with no place to consume the drug, which becomes legal on Oct. 17.

Councillors and residents can begin the process to have a designated cannabis consumption zone in their community, which would be thoroughly screened by police and other agencies prior to their approval. Festivals and events in Calgary may also apply to provide a designated cannabis consumption area, similar to a beer garden.

But Coun. Jyoti Gondek said that solution only further “creates inequity in the city.”

“This is going to be a situation where you have to have a councillor bring this forward and figure out the space that would be permissible,” Gondek said. “Is this going to prevent people from lighting up somewhere else? I don’t know and I would be hard pressed to say that a location, in say Inglewood, would be attractive to someone who lives in Tuscany.”

Gondek said she’d prefer a bylaw that allows people to consume cannabis publicly, so long as they maintain a certain distance from doorways and schools, similar to tobacco restrictions that are already in place.

“At least it’s recognizing what human behaviour is likely to do,” she said of the idea. “People that live in an apartment where they’re not able to consume inside because they’re renting or because there’s condo policy that won’t let you, it would be easier for them to go 100 metres away from their building to smoke cannabis and then go back inside. On the one hand we’re legalizing something and we’re saying it’s permissible, but we’re not creating spaces for people to access to consume it.”

Chris Schreiber of the Calgary Cannabis Club called the four proposed consumption zones a “very small step in the right direction.” But he said the addition of the designated areas, should they be approved by council, was “a half measure” that keeps smoking pot a stigmatized behaviour.

“Only four sites, that’s for a city that’s over a million people. That’s not much considering legalization’s happening,” Schreiber said. “You don’t see designated alcohol consumption sites, although I guess you would call those bars. It would be like having only four bars in the city.”

He said the measure doesn’t address the “real issue,” which is that Calgary’s consumption bylaws are too “restrictive.”

“We would much rather see those lightened a little,” Schreiber said. “People already do and will continue to consume it in public spaces. Lots of people smoke in places that they’re not supposed to smoke, so people are going to continue to smoke cannabis in places they’re not supposed to consume it.”

For Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health, the restrictions don’t go far enough. He said the idea of designated pot zones might be useful if Calgary first tightens up a number of “loopholes” in its cannabis consumption bylaws.

“Medical users will be able to smoke or vape cannabis wherever you can smoke or vape tobacco right now, which is almost all outdoor areas,” Hagen said. “The other problem here is you really can’t tell what someone’s vaping, so even if there was no medical exemption, that would be a problem as well. If no one can detect whether you’re vaping cannabis oil or nicotine oil, then it’s easy enough to skirt the bylaw.”

He said enforcement of the city’s bylaw would be difficult unless council addresses those issues.

“If they implement a full, more complete restrictions on the smoking and vaping of any substance, then there would be some utility in having these areas for people to smoke and vape,” Hagen said. “Ideally though, in a manner that it’s not clearly visible to kids and screened off and not in high traffic locations.”

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