City of North Vancouver council will consider rezoning for a recreational cannabis store at a heritage building in Lower Lonsdale.
The rezoning application is for a recreational cannabis retail store at 115 East 1st Street in Lower Lonsdale.
The building on the subject site is a three-level mixed-use building that was built in 1911 and has two commercial units on the ground floor, which face East 1st Street, and 18 residential rental apartments above.
On March 30, 2020, Council approved a development application for this site, granting the building protected heritage status.
Council also approved two additional commercial spaces in the basement of the building with access off of the rear lane.
The rezoning application for a cannabis store is being brought forward by Eggs Canna, which was founded in 2014.
According to Eggs Canna, it was among the first retailers to obtain a medical-marijuana retail use licence to operate a Cannabis store.
If approved, Eggs Canna plans to open a store that will operate Sunday to Monday, from 9 am to 11 pm, with limited hours of 11 am to 7 pm on all holidays.
“The proposal is consistent with the Official Community Plan and the criteria of the Recreational Cannabis Retail Policy. The proposed location of the store supports the commercial and retail orientation of the area,” according to a staff report to the council.
Council approved the Recreational Cannabis Retail Policy on September 17, 2018, creating a framework under which recreational cannabis retail businesses can be established in the City of North Vancouver.
The policy includes a maximum of six retail cannabis businesses that can open in the City of North Vancouver.
If council approves the application, the two Lower Lonsdale locations would be fulfilled, leaving only Central Lonsdale with one available business spot to consider a cannabis retail store.
I hope council and staff review the amount of cannabis stores licenses that will be permitted in the near future.
After seeing a constant line up out the door at the West 1st location it seems by restricting the licenses to only six in the City of North Van it may not serving the client base very well.