After weeks of discussion on cannabis legislation, City Council has approved an additional $1500 business licence fee for cannabis retailers.
The decision comes after Council initially discussed an additional $750 fee on top of the regular business licence fee. City Councilor Jonathan Torresan says he believes that the additional fee won’t impact businesses trying to invest in the City.
“I think that those who are going to be opening these businesses are likely going to make lots of money and the additional fee that’s going to come that’s going to pay for capital items and other education in public safety initiatives, I think is going to be an overall benefit to the community.”
The additional fee won’t be applied to alcohol or tobacco retailers as it was proposed to do in an earlier Council meeting. However, Torresan says Council will continue to discuss fees for the other businesses with input from the public.
“Debate has been fierce enough on cannabis on its own that we can definitely look at the other ones and get a little bit of public feedback, which is important because we don’t want to go ahead and start changing everything without letting anyone know what’s coming.”
Two City Councilors opposed the increase to $1500, but ultimately the fee was passed. No cannabis legislation will be enforced until the federal government has legalized marijuana.