Pot Shop !

With profound apologies to Humphrey Bogart,

Of all the streets, in all the neighbourhoods, in the entire National Capital area, The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario has picked ours!

Ottawa's first pot shop is set to open at 1306 Wellington St. West (not to be confused with the downtown Wellington St.)  Really? Why here? Is it the whole trendy Wellington Village/Westboro thing?

A bit of background: When we bought here, thirty years ago, it wasn't trendy - just a quiet residential area, with stores like BiWay.  There were a couple of schools and regular families could afford to buy here, unlike now.

However, with the city's current policy of intensification, they are stuffing as many doubles, triplexes,  apartment buildings and condos as they can, into every square inch of this area. You literally cannot go on any block of this neighbourhood, without seeing a construction vehicle or a hole in the ground where a house once stood.

As if all this house construction (and resulting truck traffic) was not enough, this summer Elmdale Public School will be undergoing major renovation. That is expected to go on for over a year, resulting in even more disruption and truck traffic.

A few years ago they re-worked Wellington St. itself. Yes, I know. It's called traffic calming. They widened the sidewalks to make them more pedestrian friendly. There were once places for a bus to tuck in, beside the sidewalk, while letting traffic continue, in the other lane. Those places disappeared, in favour of the widened sidewalks. So now, when a bus stops to let off or take on passengers, the entire lane of traffic stops. It is an extremely slow drive along Wellington, between three and seven pm. You can walk it faster.

So now, into this incredibly congested area, the AGCO, has decided that we should host Ottawa's first and only pot shop! What were they thinking? If people drive here, from all over the city, where are they going to park? It's just not going to work.

What can we do? The city has no say in this. It is up to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario. Residents can make their views known until February 22nd - tomorrow! Their site is not easy to navigate. Go to agco.ca, then at the top of the page click on… iAGCO online services, then click …submit a complaint.

David Wise, of the City of Ottawa, provided me with an explanation of the process. Here are the only grounds on which to complain:

"The Provincial legislation provides that the AGCO may not issue a retail store authorization for applications deemed not to be in the “public interest”, which has been defined in s. 10 of Regulation 468/18 as meaning:

1. protecting public health and safety, 
2. protecting youth and restricting their access to cannabis, and 
3. preventing illicit activities in relation to cannabis. "

As far as # 1, public health and safety, I think this area will be more dangerous because of the influx of traffic. Buses will be even later than they are now. Emergency vehicles will not be able to attend to crisis situations in time, because our roads are going to be impassable. 

And # 2, our youth? How about the grade 7 and 8's who attend Fisher Park Public School? It's a five minute walk away. Those students have the right to leave school  at lunch time. They are always roaming along Wellington Street. It's going to be easy for them to ask others to go into the store and buy weed for them. How would you like to be teaching those kids in the afternoon?

Five minutes south of here is Westgate Shopping Centre, which has plenty of vacant stores right now. Why not go there? There's a large parking lot and no residential neighbourhood would have to bear the brunt of the influx of cars.

There is a limit to how many houses, people and cars this area can absorb. Sorry Ottawa, but we're full up already. Thanks for reading this and hopefully, taking the time to help us out, by contacting the AGCO.

Click here to read about how Warren Avenue residents feel about this.

Click here to read how area businesses feel about it.