{"id":38923,"date":"2026-09-18T10:30:02","date_gmt":"2026-09-18T14:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=38923"},"modified":"2026-09-18T10:30:04","modified_gmt":"2026-09-18T14:30:04","slug":"cannabis-stores-could-be-subject-to-increased-monitoring-following-committee-recommendations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/cannabis-stores-could-be-subject-to-increased-monitoring-following-committee-recommendations\/","title":{"rendered":"Cannabis stores could be subject to increased monitoring following Committee recommendations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Local cannabis retail stores could be subject to increased monitoring after lawmakers received a series of recommendations made by a citizen-led task force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Council last week tentatively approved several recommendations made by members of the Town\u2019s Cannabis Retail Review Task Force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Task Force\u2019s recommendations include improved public information and reporting identifying where residents and businesses can report their concerns on cannabis retail; establish a \u201ctargeted response\u201d approach to these concerns, engaging the retailer, property owners, neighbouring businesses, York Regional Police, and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) where appropriate; and encourage cannabis retailers and property owners to \u201cproactively address legitimate neighbourhood concerns, including litter, parking, property maintenance, and patron behaviour occurring on their properties.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Task Force also called on the Town to reaffirm the municipality\u2019s position when it opted in on cannabis retail in 2019, calling for the authority enforce the location of cannabis retail with a minimum of 150-metres separating them from \u201csensitive uses\u201d including daycares, nurseries, parks, group homes, addiction and counselling facilities, recreation facilities, and \u201cother appropriate gathering spaces.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This separation has not been enforced locally by licensing authorities, Council and Task Force members agree, and the Task Force called on Council to request the Ontario Government \u201camend the cannabis retail regulatory framework to provide municipalities with meaningful authority to address the location, density, and clustering of cannabis retail stores within their communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her report to Council, Town Solicitor Patricia De Sario said the Town does not have the authority to license private cannabis retail stores or prohibit them as a land use, but \u201cprivate cannabis retail stores are required to comply with the Town\u2019s zoning bylaw and the Official Plan in regard to zones and standards that apply to all retail stores.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs such, private cannabis retail stores may be located wherever retail uses are permitted and must comply with setbacks and other standards,\u201d she said. \u201cFurther, the Building Code and Fire Code may apply if permits are required and where these codes do apply, the appropriate inspections would be required.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While municipal authority might be limited, Council endorsed the Task Force\u2019s recommendations at last week\u2019s Committee of the Whole meeting, a decision expected to be ratified at the last scheduled meeting of this Council term on September 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to\u2026thank everyone on the Committee, both staff and public members for doing a great job in identifying and researching and understanding better the impact of cannabis retail stores in Aurora,\u201d said Ward 5 Councillor John Gallo, who chaired the Task Force. \u201cI think we captured the issues, I think we identified the concerns, and we put forward some action items to [get in front of] any potential issues, and strategies on how to deal with them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The recommendations were also supported by Ward 1 Councillor Ron Weese, who was an active participant on the Task Force as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to thank the Legal Department for the work that they have done on helping pull all of this together, because it was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle at one point, but they did a fantastic job and I want to thank the people who are on the committee. We had people who are compliance officers with large cannabis organizations, we had residents, we had people from the YRP, we had people from our own Bylaw offices, both residents as well as commercial people. I think the job was done very well and I hope these recommendations are put into motion for us through this because I think it will make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Local cannabis retail stores could be subject to increased monitoring after lawmakers received a series of recommendations made by a citizen-led task force. Council last week tentatively approved several recommendations made by members of the Town\u2019s Cannabis Retail Review Task Force. The Task Force\u2019s recommendations include improved public information and reporting identifying where residents and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-headline_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-a7N","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-25 12:17:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38923","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=38923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38924,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38923\/revisions\/38924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}