Cannabis Edible Restaurant Faces Tremendous Hurdles
London, Ont. Restauranteur-to-Be Ready to Tackle Governments to Open a Cannabis Edible Restaurant – LPC
Jeremy Smith wants to open a cannabis edible restaurant in his city of London, Ont. He even has a catchy name: Les Munchies. But, as he’s found, a twisted mass of legislation makes it next to impossible. Smith would need a Health Canada Processing licence, a provincial cannabis retail licence, and a change in the law.
“There are prohibitions on creating edible products in the same facility where other non-cannabis infused products are being created,” said Toronto-based lawyer Matt Maurer. He is the co-chair of the Cannabis Law Group at Torkin Manes LLP. Smith consulted with Maurer once he learned just how difficult opening a cannabis edible restaurant can be.
“I said to Jeremy, I can kind of tell you what needs to be changed in terms of the law and what that looks like,” Maurer told Global News. “But in terms of getting that political willpower, you need a lobbyist or someone like that with government relations experience to sort of figure out what the levers are and where are the best places to sort of pull those levers.
“It wouldn’t be overly difficult to do it if there was the political willpower to do it.”
And there’s the rub. Getting that political willpower – from essentially both federal and provincial governments – won’t be easy. Currently, there isn’t anything on the provincial law books to prevent Smith from opening his cannabis edible restaurant if the law changes at the federal level.
But that’s only because there didn’t need to be – the Cannabis Act has prohibited it from the beginning. It’s possible that the provincial government could delay Smith’s retail cannabis licence long enough to enact a law prohibiting it. Hence, Smith may have to make sure he has that political will in Ontario already as well.
(Ontario’s past actions are iffy on this one. Ontario said no to cannabis lounges, primarily on the basis of Smoke Free Ontario. But the Ontario government did say yes to farm-gate cannabis, although it was slow to roll out. Its approach to cannabis since federal legalization has been erratic to date, so it’s hard to predict which way it will go on a licence for a cannabis edible restaurant.)
Why Would a Cannabis Edible Restaurant Be Such a Problem? – LPC
The Cannabis Act set out a framework designed first and foremost to protect the health and safety of Canadians. Edibles did not become legal for sale until over a year after initial legalization – another example of its edibles safety approach. It’s easy to put it down to cannabis stigma. That may be part of it, but there may be other reasons.
For one, the fact that the Cannabis Act split producing and processing from recreational sales (giving the latter to the provinces) automatically built in a divide between the two. That will make it much more difficult to open something like a cannabis edible restaurant which involves both cannabis processing and cannabis sales.
For another, it’s possible the lawmakers simply did not see the possible conflicts this would create down the road. Cannabis grew from the medical market, so recreational cannabis was a whole different animal.
In the US, cannabis lounges and “cannabis consumption bars” – which include edibles – are already legal in some places. But their frameworks and looser rules created an environment for those to grow naturally.
Many are calling for Canada to loosen cannabis rules. That may happen with the upcoming Cannabis Act Review. But even so, it may be a long time before Smith gets a chance to open his own cannabis edible restaurant. Health and safety is important, but it would be nice to see more movement towards easier access to legal cannabis as the industry matures.
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