By Corey Fischer

No Water Rate Deal For Commercial Cannabis Growers

Jun 8, 2018 | 7:07 AM

Properties used to grow commercial marijuana in Greater Vernon, won’t be able to get the less costly agricultural rate for water.

The Greater Vernon Advisory Committee has decided those businesses will be charged the commercial or industrial rate.

GVAC chair Juliette Cunningham says everyone is going through a learning curve on the soon to be legalized product.

“People tend to look at cannabis differently than other things, even beer and wine or whatever. Until it’s normalized, and we all know what all of those changes are going to be, we’re all learning as we go.”

BC Assessment will classify growing cannabis as a farm use, but the operations will be excluded getting farm tax status.

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Director Mike Macnabb says there’s potential for a lot of land to be used for growing the plants.

“So it’s a new product that’s being produced, it has potentially a very high profit margin, so then, it should really be considered as a commercial or industrial application.”

RDNO staff say they’ve received a number of development applications related to growing cannabis.

Macnabb says while there’s plenty of interest in growing pot commercially, there’s a lot of unknowns about what the market will be, and some businesses could go under.

“So we want to be very careful going forward that we actually recover a fair cost for the water we provide.”

Pictured: Mike Macnabb, GVAC director

by Corey Fischer