Officials in Toronto, Ontario, Canada will stop cracking down on illegal cannabis shops in the city due to budgetary and safety concerns, CBC reports. During a council budget committee last week, Carleton Grant, the city’s executive director of municipal licensing and standards, said shutting down the shops should be the responsibility of law enforcement.
“We’ve made efforts over the last five to six years to close them down, to put up concrete blocks that are only to be removed within 24 hours. We have boarded up buildings. We have been countersued for locking a tenant into a business. We have used every tool available to us.” — Grant via CBC
The city received C$8.97 million in 2018 from the Ontario Cannabis Legalization Implementation Fund to help municipalities with local costs associated with adult-use cannabis legalization, including enforcement, but the funding ran out by the end of 2024, Grant said.
Grant added that the municipal bylaw enforcement officers who investigated and shut down the shops “do not have arrest powers and are not permitted or trained to use force while carrying out enforcement activities,” which “makes the enforcement of unlicensed cannabis dispensaries challenging and presents health and safety risks to officers.”
Keesha Seaton, spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, told CBC that the province “will continue to ensure there is integrity in the regulated market by working with all partners” but did not specify who the agency would work with in Toronto. Last year, the provincial government announced it would provide C$31 million over three years to support cannabis enforcement efforts. The funds will enable the Provincial Joint Forces Cannabis Enforcement Team to respond to illegal cannabis production, sale, and distribution.
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