{"id":22737,"date":"2019-01-21T21:30:03","date_gmt":"2019-01-22T02:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=22737"},"modified":"2019-01-24T18:05:28","modified_gmt":"2019-01-24T23:05:28","slug":"aurora-opts-in-to-retail-cannabis-after-raucous-council-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/aurora-opts-in-to-retail-cannabis-after-raucous-council-meeting\/","title":{"rendered":"Aurora opts in on retail cannabis after raucous Council meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Aurora has voted 5 \u2013 1 to opt in on retail cannabis.<br \/>\nThe decision came at the end of a raucous Council meeting that descended into chaos in the public gallery when it was clear how the vote was going to go.<br \/>\nThe motion to opt in was made by Councillor Sandra Humfryes, and was followed by impassioned speeches by all Council members participating in the debate.<br \/>\nVoting in favour of opting in were Mayor Tom Mrakas, Councillors Wendy Gaertner, Rachel Gilliland and John Gallo. The lone voice stating the case for opting out was Councillor Harold Kim.<br \/>\nCouncillor Michael Thompson excused himself from the debate citing a conflict of interest due to his job with a retail pharmacy.<br \/>\nAlthough Councillor Gallo\u2019s decision to opt in tipped the scales towards a victory for the opt-in count, the meeting turned raucous as soon as the phrase \u201copt in\u201d escaped Councillor Gaertner\u2019s lips.<br \/>\nAt the moment she made her decision clear, a chorus of shouting came out from the public galleries, which were filled with nearly 200 area residents. Sparks flew when the outnumbered opt-in crowd joined in the fray, spurring heated arguments and gestures, at which point Council members left the chambers until the verbal brawl died down.<br \/>\n27 members of the public stated their cases at the podium. Just six of these residents spoke in favour of opting in.<\/p>\n<a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-facebook nolightbox\" data-provider=\"facebook\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F22737&#038;t=Aurora%20opts%20in%20on%20retail%20cannabis%20after%20raucous%20Council%20meeting&#038;s=100&#038;p&#091;url&#093;=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F22737&#038;p&#091;images&#093;&#091;0&#093;=&#038;p&#091;title&#093;=Aurora%20opts%20in%20on%20retail%20cannabis%20after%20raucous%20Council%20meeting\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Facebook\" title=\"Share on Facebook\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/facebook.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-twitter nolightbox\" data-provider=\"twitter\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F22737&#038;text=Like%3F\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px;margin-right:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"twitter\" title=\"Share on Twitter\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/twitter.png\" \/><\/a><a class=\"synved-social-button synved-social-button-share synved-social-size-24 synved-social-resolution-single synved-social-provider-mail nolightbox\" data-provider=\"mail\" rel=\"nofollow\" title=\"Share by email\" href=\"mailto:?subject=Aurora%20opts%20in%20on%20retail%20cannabis%20after%20raucous%20Council%20meeting&#038;body=Like%3F:%20https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newspapers-online.com%2Fauroran%2Fwp-json%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fposts%2F22737\" style=\"font-size: 0px;width:24px;height:24px;margin:0;margin-bottom:5px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"mail\" title=\"Share by email\" class=\"synved-share-image synved-social-image synved-social-image-share\" width=\"24\" height=\"24\" style=\"display: inline;width:24px;height:24px;margin: 0;padding: 0;border: none;box-shadow: none\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/plugins\/social-media-feather\/synved-social\/image\/social\/regular\/48x48\/mail.png\" \/><\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Brock Weir Aurora has voted 5 \u2013 1 to opt in on retail cannabis. The decision came at the end of a raucous Council meeting that descended into chaos in the public gallery when it was clear how the vote was going to go. The motion to opt in was made by Councillor Sandra [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-5UJ","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 13:59:46","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22737\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}