Delta, BC moves to public hearing for first weed store

The City of Delta, B.C. is considering its first weed store at an industrial location in Annacis Island.

Council voted Monday to grant preliminary approval of a staff recommendation for a rezoning application to open a pot shop at 616 Chester Road.

Now the application will go to a public hearing and vote on a date yet to be announced.

The proposed store would be operated by Seed & Stone, a recreational cannabis retailer with an open location in Chilliwack, as well as two planned locations in Victoria and one in White Rock.

The overall proposal is for a 3,638-square-foot portion of an existing multi-tenant industrial building, with a 1,001-square-foot storefront.

Following federal legalization of adult-use weed in 2018, Delta prohibited dispensaries in all zones. Since then, city council has approved two rezoning applications for cannabis production facilities in industrial areas on a case-by-case basis.

Read more: Burb Cannabis applies to open weed store at UBC

Last November, staff brought a subject application for the Chester Road store to a council workshop. Comments and question from that workshop were incorporated into a staff review.

According to that review, the proposed cannabis store includes a warehouse and a retail component at a scale similar to other permitted warehouse businesses.

“As a result, the proposed use is consistent with the Industrial (I) designation,” it reads “The scale of the retail component is discussed further in this report.”

Like in other municipalities taking a conservative approach to cannabis, zoning restrictions were used to prevent industry businesses from setting up shop.

However, B.C. municipalities can’t stop producers from growing cannabis on agricultural land, as it’s been deemed “farm use.”

Pure Sunfarms — owned by veteran vegetable growers Village Farms International, Inc. (TSX: VFF) (Nasdaq: VFF) — operates some of the largest Canadian greenhouse space dedicated to cannabis on the Agricultural Land Reserve in Delta.

With files from Nick Laba