Two potential cannabis stores are vying to open in a neighbourhood where there can only be one.
Retailers Item 9 and Fire and Flower both want to set up shop in the Mill Creek area off Whyte Avenue. Both applied to the City of Edmonton for development permits. Because demand was so great, the city used a lottery system to distribute them.
By the luck of the draw, Fire and Flower was granted a permit before Item 9.
“Because our application has been sitting with the city for 90 days, and we're completely compliant, there's no other reason than this random lottery system that the city came up with to be withholding our application,” said Marynek Howe, one of Item 9’s two founders.
There’s a chance the business could open anyway, but Item 9’s window of opportunity is limited: City bylaws mandate a cannabis store must be at least 200 metres from any other, and Fire and Flower is nearly approved to open a location 60 metres away, across the street.
But not yet.
Fire and Flower fails to meet a different city bylaw, one that says cannabis stores also need to be 200 metres away from a school. Mill Creek School is 199 metres away from Fire and Flower’s proposed location on Whyte Avenue.
While Fire and Flower appeals the one-metre violation, Item 9’s lawyers asked the city to issue a Mandamus Order to compel the City of Edmonton to grant the business’ application. This was denied on Wednesday afternoon.
Howe explained Item 9 has two options: “It would either be to go to the Subdivision and Development Appeal board after the 40 days and ask for the 68 metre separation distance—which I’m fairly confident would not be granted—or it's to go the Court of Appeals.”
On Wednesday, court heard Fire and Flower’s lawyers would be asking the city for a variance on the bylaws.
Howe and his business partner, Jeffrey Clark, said they would continue to fight.
With files from David Ewasuk
