A budding Prince George medical marijuana distribution business will make its case to city council to set up shop outside the approved weed cultivation areas.
The public hearing portion of Monday night's meeting will feature discussion of a temporary use permit for a business intending to supply medical marijuana to licensed prescription patients.
The applicant wants to set up in the Carter Light Industrial area, at 1798 Nicholson St. where raw product would be received and processed cannabis would be distributed via courier van. It would not be a storefront where customers would come to pick up their prescriptions.
Planning staff are recommending council deny the three-year permit.
Applicant John Stiles and partner Doug Jamieson raised the idea with city council back in March when the group was deliberating zoning rules restricting licenced grow operations to the BCR, Danson and Boundary Road industrial sites and properties in the Agricultural Land Reserve larger than 15 hectares. At the time, they said their business model wouldn't fit into bylaw rules and would require a smaller footprint.
The business is in the application process with Health Canada to become a licenced medical marijuana producer, as is required whether the intent is to grow or only sell the substance.
According to the staff report, the Carter light industrial area wasn't considered for inclusion the bylaw because it didn't meet the requirement of being at least one kilometre from residential properties.
"Administration believes this proposal may set precedence for permitting medical marijuana uses in the Carter Light Industrial area," said the staff report, along with calling the proposed use "not compatible" with the surrounding uses that include building supply stores, College of New Caledonia and the Salvation Army food bank and thrift store.
A public hearing will also be held Monday night for a rezoning application to allow the Spruceland Baptist Church to move from its current home on inside the Spruce Capital Senior's Recretion Centre on Rainbow Drive to its own space in South Fort George.
The property at 956 La Salle Ave. is currently a vacant lot (with the remnant of a building's foundation) zoned for residential use. Moving the church would require changing the use to minor institutional. The proposed church would seat 100 in the assembly area and 70 in the basement hall. Regular hours of operation would be Sundays between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. and 5-8:30 p.m. as well as regular 1.5-hour evening bible study and prayer meetings.
Public hearings begin in council chambers at 7 p.m.
