Heather Wright/The Independent

Developers looking to start a cannabis operation in Plympton-Wyoming will have to wait at least a year.
Town councillors have agreed to enact an interim control bylaw for at least one year in the hopes it can set some guidelines for where the operations can set up shop.
In the last year, two people have expressed an interest in setting up a cannabis growth operation in Wyoming. Some municipalities limit that activity to industrial areas. But councillors voiced concern since the town’s industrial land is in Wyoming and close to housing. Plympton-Wyoming Deputy Mayor Muriel Wright had already heard residents voice concerns about legal cannabis operations from Petrolia.
High Park Farms has been producing marijuana for the recreation and medicinal market since 2018 on Lasalle Line in Enniskillen – close to Plympton-Wyoming’s border. Wright gets calls about the light pollution and the smells coming from the greenhouse.
Planner Sarah Baldwin looked at what other municipalities are doing to protect residents from the unpleasant side effects of the legal operation.
Some towns control the operations with a site plan and others work through separate noise and odour bylaws. But council isn’t sure if Plympton-Wyoming should follow the lead of another community.
Wright says so far, they have not been able to find a solution to Plympton-Wyoming’s concerns in other bylaws.
And she wants the time to get the issue right.
Wright instead won the support of council to look at an interim control bylaw to stop the development of cannabis operations for now.
At the Dec. 14 meeting, council enacted the Interim Control bylaw. It’s effect is no cannabis cultivation or production facilities will be allowed in the municipality for at least a year. The bylaw could be extended for a second year.
Mayor Lonny Napper said earlier he believes it’s a good idea for the time being “until we have the proper time to really look at it.”
In the meantime, Baldwin will complete a study on the regulations.