Concerns over cannabis growing operations created some discussion at Huron County council this week.
There have been concerns about odour, in particular, in several areas in the county, but Warden Jim Ginn says it's something that's been discussed at the Western Wardens Caucus meetings as well. He says the legislation still hasn't caught up with what's happening in the industry and the general feeling is there's still a lot of illegal cannabis production.
"Apparently there's a number of places where it is grown and the licence states it's for four people and one warden says you couldn't smoke that much marijuana if you smoked 24 hours a day, 365 days a year."
Ginn says one problem is municipalities are not told who has a licence or where it's going to be located until it's up and running, so there's no consultation with the municipality.
"So it may be in places that aren't zoned correctly for it and may not have the setback distances that are required and you need to go in and shut down the operation, but most municipalities have put in place setbacks from residences. That's about the best that we can do right now."
Ginn adds, some of the operations were established before the bylaws were pit in place and there isn't much the municipality can do about that.
He also notes, the biggest problem is with indoor operations that are anywhere near a residential area because the exhaust fans blow the smoke right into those residential areas.
