A Calgary city councillor is hoping that an upcoming Notice of Motion will align city policy with provincial rules around the dispensing of cannabis products at minor prohibited events.
Ward 11 Coun. Kourtney Penner, who fired up the Notice of Motion that will come to the Executive Committee next week, said it’s a matter of making sure the province and city are rolling from the same set of papers.
Under the Alberta Gaming Liquor Cannabis rules (section 4.17), “a retail cannabis store may apply for a licence extension to sell cannabis at a minors-prohibited entertainment (e.g. live music) event or cannabis industry trade show.”
The Retail Cannabis Store Handbook outlines several qualifying rules in order to have the products on-site, including municipal approval of the event location.
“Cannabis consumption is happening at these events and festivals anyways, in a cannabis-designated area that’s permitted in festivals,” Penner said.
Penner said right now you can’t bring in your own cannabis to these events, and oftentimes festival goers will order their weed from a vendor and have it delivered. Under a change in the rules, it would make it similar to alcohol, which you can purchase and consume at designated sites at the festivals.
Casey Baer with Chinook Cannabis said they’ve been supplying weed for adult-only events across Alberta for the past four years. He said Calgary is the only city they’ve worked in over the past year where on-site vending is prohibited.
“For retailers, they just need to jump through a million more hoops and run a very costly delivery process to those events,” he said.
“We just have to go through crazy hoops and a crazy costly and risk-averse delivery model, versus where we can just actually vend on site like we can in, say, Edmonton.”
Growth op for cannabis sales said Baer
The provincial regulations were updated in January 2024. Baer said he started to inquire with the City of Calgary about changes to the local rules back in April last year. At that time, he said it was difficult to get any traction with city administration because no one knew about the AGLC changes.
He said he was passed to “a million different contact points, and no one knew what I was talking about.”
“I think it kind of flew under the radar. The road of least resistance was just to say, ‘No.’ That’s my suspicion,” he said.
Baer said they’ve surveyed attendees at events like the Great Outdoor Comedy Festival and roughly half are recreational users of marijuana. In the past, they’ve had to park a van just outside the site and do half-hour deliveries.
“That’s perfect audience for it but having to go and do an online transaction and use your credit card on your phone just put so many hurdles for the consumer and the retailer, and it makes it off-putting,” he said.
“But when we do it on-site, we saw 10x sales easily in Edmonton.”
Coun. Penner said these are adult-only events, where the attendees can make their own personal decisions. It just makes sense to align the rules with the rest of Alberta.
“I am hearing that this is an opportunity that we can create to be compliant, and I’m bringing it forward,” she said.
The Notice of Motion will be presented for technical review at the Executive Committee meeting on Feb. 11. If it passes technical approval, it will go to the Feb. 25 full meeting of Calgary city council for debate and potential approval.
