Vancouver’s city council votes to end cannabis prohibition in the Downtown Eastside

published on June 27, 2019 by Piper Courtenay in Georgia Straight

After more than a month of waiting for the motion to hit chamber, Vancouver’s city council has voted in favour of changing zoning bylaws in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) neighbourhood.

On May 24, NPA city councillor Rebecca Bligh advanced a motion to amend a bylaw excluding cannabis retail and distribution from the city’s most impoverished neighbourhood to allow for “well-considered exceptions”.

The bylaw was created in 2015 as the result of several public hearings on licensing rules for medical cannabis dispensaries. Section 11 of the city’s zoning and development regulations originally ruled that no cannabis retail hubs could exist in the DTES (pictured below) neighbourhood to limit the proximity of dispensaries to “youth and vulnerable populations”…