The mayor of Kingsville feels his council is now better equipped to make a decision on retail cannabis stores.
The town held an information session Monday night to better educate council and the public on the issue.
Nelson Santos says ever changing legislation has made the decision making process a challenge.
"The whole area surrounding cannabis and the different legislation, whether we're dealing with production licenses versus the market licenses, it can be blurred every once in a while. So trying to keep the messaging and, certainly, the decisions to be made based on the retail itself was one that we found very interesting."
He says residents' opinions are varied.
"Many came with an open mind to learn more. Others certainly came already decided one way or the other in terms of opting in or opting out. They would like to see more of a 'wait and see' and see what the experience looks like, but none the less, it's an important part of the conversation we needed to have to understand what's at stake."
Kingsville Mayor Nelson Santos attends the regular meeting of council on July 24, 2017. (Photo by Ricardo Veneza)
Kingsville Council will make a decision on retail cannabis stores at its January 14 meeting.
In the meantime, residents can fill out an online survey at www.kingsville.ca.
Santos says they'll be keeping a close my on neighbouring municipalities going forward.
"Every municipality is going to be a little bit different in terms of where and what a storefront might even look like. Certainly we need to examine the potential impacts, if any. Those are the things we need to look at first before deciding whether we're going to opt in or opt out as well because we are certainly cautious to hearing our public's opinion."
So far, Leamington has opted in while Tecumseh and Lakeshore have opted out — other local municipalities have until January 22 to decide.
The PC government has said a lottery will be used to phase in stores in April when they can legally operate in Ontario.
To get things started, 25 licenses will be issued across the province to municipalities with populations of 50,000 or more.
— with files from AM800's Rob Hindi