Leaves of three, let it be. Leaves of four or more, you'll have to check in with the District of North Vancouver and your neighbours.
On Monday, District of North Vancouver council unanimously gave first reading to a bylaw that would ban medical marijuana production and distribution in the municipality.
The bylaw is not meant to close the door on medical marijuana, said Mayor Richard Walton.
But it does mean any medicinal pot operations will have to apply to the municipality and go through the scrutiny of a public hearing before setting up shop.
"A commercial establishment won't all of a sudden find that the landlord next door has leased out a medical marijuana facility," he said.
Coun. Alan Nixon wanted to be sure North Vancouver residents are aware of the magnitude of these operations, pointing out Richmond is currently pondering a facility that could produce 540,000 kilograms of marijuana.
"When it might come to the district, it's not going to be a small mom and pop kind of scale, it's going to be a large distribution warehouse," he said.
The district may hear applications for small cottage cultivation as opposed to big industrial production, suggested Coun. Mike Little. "There's an awful lot of aficionados in this area, and the interest from that group wasn't mass production, it was very much small, in the same way you'd see a craft brewery," he said.
Little said he would consider a marijuana facility in some spaces, but security would be his paramount concern. "The District of North Vancouver is certainly large enough with a varied enough land use that we should be able to find some suitable sites," he said.
Former Vancouver Police Department officer Coun. Doug MacKay-Dunn supported the proposal, albeit with one caveat.
"The situation in Deep Cove where a shop opened very close to a school should not be repeated," he said.
Council has heard presentations advocating an overhaul of Canada's marijuana laws, including words from Stop the Violence founder Evan Wood, who has called marijuana the jet fuel of organized crime.
Those presentations, along with recent reforms in Colorado and Washington, have been influential, according to Coun. Lisa Muri.
