Two more retail cannabis stores to come before Kamloops council

Mar 19, 2019 | 4:09 PM

KAMLOOPS — The public has a chance to weigh in next week on two additional cannabis store applications in Kamloops.

The city’s business licence inspector, Dave Jones, says a public hearing will be held next Tuesday to discuss two new retail cannabis applications — one on each shore.

“We received them a little while back, so going through the process it’s now time to bring them forward to council,” Jones says. “So anything that goes in front of council, people have the option to either send in their correspondence through mail or email and then of course if people choose they can come to council and speak at the council meeting.”

So far, Jones says correspondence hasn’t been received in support of or against the stores. One is proposed for 320 Victoria St. downtown, and the other for 726 Sydney Ave. on the North Shore.

There’s also no issue with either store not being properly zoned.

“In normal fashion that is the first thing that we check and if it’s in contravention of either the P-3 zoning, school zones, or the door-to-door of another cannabis store, we contact the applicant and advise them that the application will not move forward until that issue has been resolved,” Jones says. “So because they’re going into council that means they meet our criteria at this time.”

These two applications mean 19 have been seen by council so far. The same company, Trident Enterprises Inc., have applied for each location. The south shore store’s name would be “Kamloops Cannabis Company,” and for Sydney Avenue, it would be “North Thompson Cannabis Company.”

The North Shore location is not far from an application that was turned down by the city earlier this year, for a location in Library Square. Jones says this location is out of the complex and further away from the Lii Michif Otipemisawak office.

“At this time things are moving ahead, obviously there’s still a lot of interest in Kamloops. I know from the phone calls I’ve received that there’s still more to come. My prediction of 25 is getting pretty close so it’ll be really interesting to see how many the province will obviously give their go ahead to, and it’ll be interesting to see when our next private store will be open.”