Earlier this week, the City of Calgary ditched their plans to build four public spaces to consume cannabis. 

The move comes after thousands of residents complained about the spaces being in their communities.

The four spaces were to be built in the areas of Bridgeland, Ogden and Inglewood.

Here in Airdrie, the City has already approved one public cannabis consumption site and as Jill Iverson with the City explains they haven’t received much in the way of negative feedback.

“We’ve had very little feedback, to be honest. I think we did a fairly good job talking to a lot of residents when we did the public consultation and there’s an understanding that it fills a need. It might not be well used because the majority of people would smoke in their backyards or in their homes but it is something that the city needs to supply for those people who don’t have a place to legally consume this soon to be legal product.”

Iverson says that those who would use the site are either those travelling from out of town or from a condo or apartment complex that forbids using marijuana.

The site will soon be located south of the Co-op in the Sierra Springs area once recreational marijuana is legal on October 17th.

“We wanted to keep it away from schools, daycares, places where children and youth gather just like we talked about for retail stores,” says Iverson, “I think we found a good location, there was six on the table. I think the council picked the best one for residents. We’re looking forward to it working out great for us and don’t see any changes coming to that like Calgary did.”

The City says that they will monitor the site over the next several months to see if any changes need to be made in the future.

“It is a pilot project,” says Iverson, “We’ve committed to a year. We’ll monitor how it’s working and if there’s any issues with it. We’ll be monitoring it throughout the year and then once that year is up, we’ll look at that again.”

Iverson hopes that the Government of Alberta will look at the possibility of legalizing Cannabis lounges in the future.

The City of Calgary has no immediate plans to revisit any public cannabis spaces.

READ MORE:

City Passes Their Cannabis Consumption By Law

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