A Port Coquitlam property owner is disappointed School District 43 trustees didn’t seek out more information about a proposed medical marijuana production facility before making comments about it last week's board of education meeting.
Leslie Wallace of Lucava Farms Inc. said her letter to the board asked for an opportunity to answer questions about safety concerns regarding a proposed operation at 1840 Broadway St. in PoCo.
But she said she didn’t receive either a call or email in follow-up and didn’t know about any board issues until reading about them in last Friday's The Tri-City News.
“If they were going to discuss this, they could have taken time to make one phone call or one quick email,” said Wallace, who is getting public feedback on the project before making a formal application.
Among the concerns raised by trustees was the potential for odours coming from the proposed production facility located within two km of several schools.
Wallace said odours from pot production can be a problem with illegal producers but not with industrial producers that are required to meet stringent federal regulations and install carbon and HEPA filters.
“I, too have concerns about odours. We have illegal grow ups everywhere,” she said, adding: ”I hate the stench.”
Trustees also expressed fears about children getting access to marijuana and proximity of the facility to schools.
But Wallace said if she had been asked, she would have pointed out there are also pubs and beer and wine outlets in the same area, and that her operation would be for the production of medical cannabis, which has been legal in Canada since 2001.
“There does seem to be a huge amount of confusion, which I wouldn’t have expected from educated school trustees, on the difference between medial marijuana that has been here for 17 years and a facility closed to public that will operate within a very stringent set of guidelines imposed by the federal government and the retail sale of cannabis in July.”
Wallace said she has no plans to apply for a retail sales licence and that it’s up to everyone to protect children, noting: “I totally 100% agree with education, prevention and all of those things that school trustees should be concerned about.”
