Newmarket council has rejected town staff’s recommendation to allow retail cannabis stores to set up shop in town.

Residents will have to head to Toronto or Barrie, both of which opted-in to hosting retail cannabis stores, as local York municipalities continue to turn down the opportunity. Town council members voted in favour of opting-out of allowing the retail stores. Council also voted to express to the Ontario government municipalities should be given greater planning authority over the location of these private stores and suggest that whether a town hosts a store or not that the province enter into a revenue sharing arrangement to ensure local governments receive an appropriate share of the revenue generated from cannabis sales.

Residents took to the microphone for over an hour at the meeting relating concerns about access for underage youth and encouraging use to supporting stores that would regulate product and have economic benefits as well as give people a physical person to ask questions to while purchasing.

The public was given the opportunity to comment on opting in or out prior to this meeting through a council workshop, public information session, online survey, phone survey, online outreach and print outreach last month.

“There was a stark and polarized divide on whether or not to allow cannabis retail stores,” Newmarket planner Ted Horton said. “While there were many different ways residents could provide input, this is not a representation of the opinions of all Newmarket residents.”

At the public information centre hosted by the town, sticky notes were provided to attendees to simply write “opt-in” or “opt-out” and 78 per cent of the notes did not support retail stores in town and 22 per cent did. However, those who provided detailed written comment at the meeting regarding the rule surround where cannabis could be smoked in town, the majority of commenters seemed in favour of retail stores, Horton added.

While the online survey and phone surveys both show slightly more participants supported opting-out of allowing the retail stores to set up shop within the municipality. While of the 2,143 who participated in the phone survey, 37 per cent wanted the town to opt-out, 32 per cent wanted the town to opt-in immediately and 31 per cent said opt-out for now, but Horton notes the results should not be taken as every resident’s opinion.

“Similar to the online survey it should be noted that the phone survey is not scientific – rather, it represents a gauge of public input that should be understood in the context of its respondents,” Horton said in a report provided to council. “This is due to methodological challenges with this phone survey.”

Although not scientific, of those surveyed online who were asked if they were to use cannabis how would they prefer to obtain it, 54 per cent indicated they will not be using cannabis, 37 per cent said they would use legal private retail stores, 5 per cent would purchase from the Ontario Cannabis Store and 3 per cent said they would grow their own. The phone survey indicated 69 per cent would not use cannabis and 17 per cent would use retail stores to purchase cannabis.

The same report pointed out that if the town opts-out, it would be missing out on the economic benefit of a $5.5 billion industry across Canada.