Plans to open a medical marijuana store in the location where a popular café was shut down are creating controversy in Dartmouth.

The owner of Buds Hemp Shop, Logan Chaulk, told CBC News he's applying for an occupancy permit for a storefront location on Windmill Road.

Inside the proposed medical marijuana and supply store, painting has started and several bongs have been placed on store shelves. Chaulk said his goal is to open the store in mid-August.

It's the same location where Halifax zoning officials cracked down on the Darkside Gallery and Cafe. The city said Darkside had a permit to operate as an art store with "coffee service as an accessory use."

Still grieving the café

The business shut down last October after the owners pleaded guilty to violating city bylaws because it was selling too much food.

The prospect of a pot shop is not going over well among some in the neighbourhood.

"It's been a lightning rod in terms of controversy," said Sam Austin, the councillor for Dartmouth Centre in an interview with CBC News.

He said a marijuana business is rubbing salt in the wound because "Darkside Cafe was really beloved" and said its customers "still grieve the loss of the café."

'Really HRM ... You've given us a pot shop'

He said the municipality doesn't pick which businesses set up shop, and added the job of bureaucrats is to enforce the rules equally.

Austin summed up the complaints he's heard as: "Really HRM? We've lost our neighbourhood café and you've given us a pot shop in its place."

Whether an occupancy permit will be approved for a marijuana business appears to be in doubt. Brendan Elliott, a spokesperson for the municipality, said the city would not issue a permit for a marijuana dispensary, medical or otherwise, as federal regulations currently prohibit the sale of marijuana through retail storefronts.

'Not planning's finest moment'

Austin, whose background is in urban planning, said closing a popular business and replacing it with a polarizing one highlights a problem with the city's planning bylaw.

"It's certainly not planning's finest moment."

Austin said this case illustrates "it's high time" for the Halifax-Dartmouth Centre Plan. It's being drafted to modernize new development rules to capture the vision and desires of residents for their communities.

He said the city has planning rules that have been in place since 1978, with some sections dating back to the Second World War.