The location of a legal cannabis production facility in Calgary is one step closer to production.
Bloom Cultivation has plans to convert a warehouse on 30 Street S.E. into a large-scale marijuana production facility.
Commercial growers are the only legal way to obtain medical marijuana since Health Canada ended its regulated residential grow program in 2014. However, a court injunction is allowing home-based growers to continue.
All too often, licensed growers broke the rules and their grow ops were shut down by the city. Wayne Brown, the City of Calgary's safety response team coordinator says a home is never a good place for a grow op.
"When you put the number of plants that are permitted under that medical marijuana license, there's all sorts of issues," says Brown, "Obviously structural; the building takes a beating because of the humidity and the growth of mould."
Where Calgary could, it used the building code to shut down licensed grow ops that weren't following the rules. The city has condemned 32 homes. Many sit vacant and derelict.
Councillor Diane Colley-Urquhart applauds the move to licensed commercial growers and says Health Canada should be responsible to clean up some of the mess from its mishandled residential grow program.
"Health Canada and the Government of Canada's handling of this whole thing has quite frankly been a disaster."
Bloom Cultivation still has a number of regulatory guidelines to meet before it can begin production at its Calgary facility.
