Photo Credit: Roberto Valdivia via Unsplash
A big stink (pun intended) has been made recently here in St. Catharines about the opening of a new cannabis operation on the corner of Vansickle Road and St. Paul Street West.
Since it became public knowledge that it would be replacing Hudson Welding & Fabricating, groups of local people have been outside protesting this decision on several occasions. While I might have had some sympathy for them a few years ago, as it is today, they really have no leg to stand on.
For starters, many claim concern about the smell, which is fair. Most people don’t care to smell marijuana the second that they walk out of their house every morning. However, given its proximity to residential areas and the requirements in place surrounding that, it isn’t going to smell like other facilities because by law it is required to have smell mitigation technology in place. This is accomplished through a complex filtration system that not all cannabis facilities are required to have, but this one is.
Beyond the issue of smell though, there is no other reasonable excuse that anyone has given for why this business shouldn’t be allowed to go into this building.
According to Statistics Canada, the cannabis industry contributed $8.26 billion to Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2019. That is nothing to scoff at. While it’s a…
