Despite bylaws outlawing the consumption of recently legalized cannabis in public places in Calgary, Mayor Naheed Nenshi says he is open to potential changes in the future.

“I think what we’ve seen is (the ban) appears to be working at the moment,” Nenshi said Saturday.

“If there are huge calls for change, we’ll have those. As I’ve said before, folks who wanted to consume cannabis on October 16th figured out how to do it and on October 17th, they also figured out how to do it.”

Nenshi said as of now, the city isn’t looking at doing anything different, unless councillors begin to hear otherwise from citizens.

Four public consumption sites in Inglewood, Bridgeland, and Ogden once proposed by Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra were shot down a month away from legalization, leaving many without a place to consume the product.

The bylaws in Calgary differ greatly from those in Edmonton, which passed bylaws aligning rules for vaping, smoking tobacco and cannabis — banning smoking within 10 metres of doors, windows, patios, bus stops and air intakes.

Edmonton even went as far as setting up designated smoking zones on two of their most popular streets.

In spite of Calgary having only two stores open when cannabis became legal this week, Nenshi said the city’s new reality has been far from disruptive.

“(It’s gone) about as smoothly as we could’ve hoped,” he said.

“Certainly we would’ve liked to have more retail locations open in time for Day 1, but those will come. There’s another nine in the hopper that are waiting for one more check off from the AGLC, so I think things are fine.”

When legalization became official Wednesday, hundreds lined up for hours outside of Four20 Premium Market and Nova Cannabis Willow Park — the only two stores open at the time.

The lineups to purchase legal cannabis have yet to die down, as hour-long wait times existed outside of Nova Friday afternoon.

Having been all across the city this past week for his mayoral duties, Nenshi said not once did he catch a whiff of cannabis being smoked.

“I’ve seen very little social disorder,” he said.

“I’ve been all over the city and I haven’t smelt any, which was not what I was expecting. I think people are being responsible.

“The point now is we’ll wait, we’ll watch, we’ll see and sometime in the new year, if there’s changes to make, we’ll make them.”

Nenshi said things have been surprisingly quiet when it comes to complaints.

“The world didn’t appear to change on the 17th in a big way,” he said.

This, however, was contrasted by noise complaints from residents near Four20 Premium Market, forcing the store to change their close time to 10 p.m. from the previous 2 a.m.

zlaing@postmedia.com

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