{"id":23186,"date":"2019-03-07T00:34:34","date_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23186"},"modified":"2019-03-07T00:34:34","modified_gmt":"2019-03-07T05:34:34","slug":"cannabis-use-should-be-regulated-across-region-says-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cannabis-use-should-be-regulated-across-region-says-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis use should be regulated across Region, says Council"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recreational cannabis use might be legal across the country, but just where you can light up is a more complicated issue.
\nFollowing a motion from Mayor Tom Mrakas last week, Aurora called on the Region of York to develop a policy on cannabis use in public places that would be uniform throughout all nine municipalities within York Region. The motion also called on municipal staff to create an education\/resource guide on cannabis to \u201censure residents and businesses are aware of the regulations\u201d once they come into force.
\nCannabis consumption is currently prohibited within 20 metres of a children\u2019s playground, publicly owned sports fields and on school property as per the Smoke Free Ontario Act, but municipalities have the ability to add further restrictions.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s a difference between having a retail store and public usage, so I think we need to deal with the public usage in public space,\u201d said Mayor Mrakas at Council last week. \u201cRight now, the Region does have a working group and they are working on creating some bylaws. I thought it was necessary that we here let the Region know we believe the best thing for the Region and the Town of Aurora is to have a Region-wide bylaw when it speaks to the usage of cannabis in public spaces.\u201d
\nMayor Mrakas added he has also spoken with York Regional Police Chief Eric Jolliffe and it was agreed that a \u201cuniform, consistent bylaw right across\u201d the Region would be in the best interests of enforcement.
\n\u201cI think if we send this message to the Region, and I am sitting there at the Region [as Aurora\u2019s representative], we can have that discussion [and] get everyone on board to say this is something we need to do to make [a bylaw] more consistent across the Region. That way, it makes the working group\u2019s job a bit easier and lets them have an understanding that everyone, all nine municipalities, are on board in creating that consistent bylaw across the Region and they can bring back something that speaks to that.\u201d
\nThe Region\u2019s working group on cannabis consumption is currently chaired by Patricia De Sario, Solicitor for the Town of Aurora. In addition, consumption has been a hot-button issue for the nine CAOs of York Region municipalities.
\nDoug Nadorozny, CAO for the Town of Aurora, said coming up with a consistent policy was a high priority item.
\n\u201cThe idea behind the Regional bylaw is there is a concern even from a prosecution perspective that if we have nine different bylaws across the Region we\u2019re just going to find ourselves in a situation where we can\u2019t enforce them\u2026because they\u2019re all going to be different and we\u2019re going to be scrambling with nine different sets of precedents and nine different sets of definitions,\u201d said Mr. Nadorozny.
\n\u201cThis work is under the guidance of the Regional CAOs group and there is a lot of effort to move it along quickly. I am not going to say it is going to be done instantly, but it is a high priority for the group.\u201d
\nSome Councillors, however, said they would like to see Aurora set its restrictions on cannabis consumption in public places now while the Region decides its next move.
\n\u201cSometimes it takes a while for things to get done with working groups at the Region,\u201d said Councillor Wendy Gaertner. \u201cThere is nothing against us passing this bylaw for the Town at the moment and then it just gets rolled into the Regional Bylaw because it might take months to get passed.\u201d
\nCouncillor John Gallo also raised questions, particularly on how far Council can go in setting restrictions on cannabis use in public places.
\n\u201cThe authority for passing a Smoking Tobacco or Cannabis bylaw falls under the Municipal Act,\u201d replied Techa van Leeuwen, Director of Community Services for the Town of Aurora. \u201cThe only caveat is we can\u2019t pass a bylaw that restricts the smoking of tobacco or cannabis on a public highway, which includes sidewalks.\u201d
\nCouncillor Gallo noted he was particularly disappointed this couldn\u2019t extend to sidewalks.
\n\u201cI look forward to the Region drafting and putting something [forward] for all nine municipalities,\u201d added Councillor Harold Kim, concluding the discussion by throwing his support behind the Mayor\u2019s motion.
\nThe motion passed on a unanimous vote of 7 \u2013 0.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recreational cannabis use might be legal across the country, but just where you can light up is a more complicated issue.
\nFollowing a motion from Mayor Tom Mrakas last week, Aurora called on the Region of York to develop a policy on cannabis use in public places that would be uniform throughout all nine municipalities within York Region. The motion also called on municipal staff to create an education\/resource guide on cannabis to \u201censure residents and businesses are aware of the regulations\u201d once they come into force.<\/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":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-61Y","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 14:34:19","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\/23186","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=23186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}