The Town of Sylvan Lake is preparing for the legalization of cannabis at their most recent council meeting, as they dealt with the issues of consumption, definitions, and locations of cannabis retail stores.

Mayor Sean McIntyre says when it comes to where cannabis would be allowed to be sold, certain restrictions are being considered in order to keep them away from public areas where children may be present, such as schools, shopping malls, public playgrounds, as well as community and health care centres.

“We also exempted, so we would not be allowing retail cannabis sales, on Lakeshore Drive, and that’s because that area is designed to be a very family friendly place, and those regulations received second reading last night (June 11th) and will be waiting until cannabis is legalized to pursue third reading.”

When it comes to consumption, McIntyre expects some changes from the provincial and federal governments in the weeks leading up to legalization as they expand their laws to include other ways to ingest pot, such as edibles, vaping or oils.

For now though, Sylvan is strictly dealing with ingesting cannabis by way of smoking, as their Cannabis Consumption Bylaw received first reading Monday night, which would further impose restrictions contained in their Smoke Free Bylaw.

“For recreational cannabis users there are restrictions, and again those are federal government restrictions, not municipal government restrictions. Sylvan Lake has gone in the same direction as the city of Calgary, the town of Banff and many others, and that’s to regulate consumption in public places.”

Medical cannabis users are except from those restrictions, but must still abide by the Town's Smoke Free Bylaw.

Final reading was given to the updated definitions bylaw for how production and retail sales of cannabis are defined.

Both the consumption and location parts of the bylaw will wait until the federal roll out of legalized marijuana to take place later on this summer before being finalized.