Pot shop owners vow to be 'integral part' of neighbourhood

The owners of cannabis store Superette, slated to open April 1, on Wellington St. W. in Ottawa met with residents Saturday to address concerns about parking, traffic, and line and crowd control.

Residents voiced a number of concerns about the opening of the cannabis store at a meeting hosted by Kitchissippi Ward councillor Jeff Leiper. Most said they were worried about the amount of traffic and parking because Superette is only one of three stores planned to open on Monday in Ottawa. 

Drummond Munro, co-founder and president of Superette, said the store has hired third-party, private security to help with lines and crowd control, parking violations, loitering, and littering. 

"We're going above and beyond," said Munro, adding there will also be signage to remind people of the rules around the store. 

ID checks before entering store

"We want to be an integral part of the community," he said. 

Munro said there will also be ID checks for everyone before entering the store. 

Residents said they want to see increased bylaw presence and for lineups and traffic to stay on the commercial streets. 

"People are already not respecting the bylaws in terms of parking," said Rebecca Grace, vice-president of the Wellington Village community association, highlighting the need for an increased security presence and increased enforcement. 

More bylaw presence wanted, say residents

"We have nothing against the store, that is all legal. But our street is a residential street and therefore we want to keep it that way," said resident Erick Lachambre. "Our concerns are mainly during the first few weeks about crowd and line control. This is commercial traffic and it should remain on a commercial street."

Resident Elaine Ryan said she is worried about traffic, lineups, and parking on her dead-end street that many young children play on. 

Coun. Leiper said he'll have infrastructure such as saw horses to close off streets like Warren Avenue to traffic quickly if necessary. 

"If people are going down there looking for parking, getting caught, it could really jam things up," said Leiper. 

"We're going to have to be relatively nimble," said Leiper. "I've committed to residents to try to paint parking stalls, which is often a solution to some of the worst parking behaviour that's there."

Leiper said he's also had a meeting with bylaw leading up to the store opening. 

"We know that bylaw is going to be relatively ruthless in the opening weeks of the store. Ticketing parking problems, ticketing traffic issues, so I do have their commitment to be more ruthless than usual," he said.