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Castor council doesn’t move forward with smoking bylaw to deal with upcoming Cannabis legalization

Opts instead to wait for clear direction from the province
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By Kevin J Sabo For the Advance

The Municipal Government Act is bringing changes to how local municipal governments manage their jurisdictions.

These changes to the MGA are requiring the Castor town Council to introduce a wide variety of updated policies and bylaws over the next several years. One such bylaw that the council has recently reviewed is a bylaw to manage smoking in town.

“Every municipality will be required to have a bylaw,” said Chief Administration Officer Sandi Jackson at the Sept. 10 council meeting.

Bylaw 1062, the Smoking in Public Places And Work Places bylaw, was given to council in order to proceed with first reading, something that council has declined to do, for the time being, seeing the bylaw as presented is an overreach. Bylaw 1062 was based on bylaws currently being put forward in other municipalities.

The bylaw as currently written would prevent smoking in any public places, including sidewalks in town, and the bylaw would include Cannabis.

There are two major issues with the bylaw as presented. The first issue is that the province is currently developing their own updated smoking laws and until the province releases theirs, council is not sure how broad to make the community bylaw. The second issue with the bylaw as presented is enforcement.

Counc. Trudy Kilner asked, “How do we enforce this?” as the current bylaw situation is already a challenge to enforce.

Counc. Brend Wismer said, “I think we should take this to the people.”

Council has opted to not move forward with the bylaw as currently written, instead of waiting for a more clear direction from the province on the matter, as well as directing CAO Jackson to prepare a community survey about what residents of Castor would like to see.