Nipping Kamloops’ pricey cannabis licence fee in the bud?

Council will consider a staff report that recommends annual fee drop to $196 from the current $5,000

Owners of cannabis stores in Kamloops will be getting a massive break on their annual business licence fees if council adopts a staff recommendation at the Dec. 13 meeting.

When the federal government legalized cannabis in the fall of 2018, the City of Kamloops set the annual business licence of such stores at $5,000 a year, 25 times more expensive than the $196.40 per year licence fee levied to owners of liquor stores.

The rationale at the time was the expectation that the introduction of cannabis stores would require additional municipal resources not seen with other businesses. However, in the intervening four years, that has not materialized, leading staff to bring forward the fee-reduction recommendation this week.

While the reduction in business licence fees for cannabis stores would be significant, it would not overall impact business licence revenue for the municipality, according to staff in its report to council.

This year, there are 16 cannabis retail business licences in Kamloops, which equates to $80,000 in business licence revenue. City staff are anticipating 15 cannabis stores to be operating in 2023, with business licence revenue dropping to $2,946 under the reduced fee structure.

However, because business licence fee revenue this year was $104,000 more than budgeted (revenue was $1.25 million compared to the budgeted $1.15 million), and because staff is maintaining the business licence revenue budget next year at 2022 levels, there would be no impact on such revenue if council gives the nod to the fee reduction for cannabis business owners.

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