Geographic analysis of cannabis regulations in the Kootenay Region
Introduction
This analysis was conducted for Tracey Harvey, GIS Instructor at Selkirk College in the School of
Environment and Geomatics at the Castlegar campus and PhD student at the University of Guelph. It was also
intended to serve as a resource for the average person to access information about municipal cannabis
regulations across the Kootenay Region. The areas of study were limited to regulations of public consumption,
retail licensing fees, and commercial production allowance.

*Blank areas on maps and areas symbolized as “not addressed” constitute areas where data was either
unavailable or incomplete.

Scale: 1:2,000,000

Discussion
The results for each category of regulation are outlined below.
Retail License fees: This analysis found that generally the west Kootenay areas
have lower licensing fees for retail cannabis businesses, with the exception of
Nelson, Castlegar, Kaslo, and Creston. The East Kootenay areas were found to
have the inverse of the western areas. License fees in rural electoral areas were
relatively high, and certain communities proved exceptional to this trend by
having lower license fees; these communities included Sparwood, Elkford,
Invermere, and Radium Hot Springs.
Public Consumption Regulations: Regional Districts were found to have no
regulations concerning the public consumption of cannabis beyond existing
provincial laws. The communities permitting public consumption (within varying
conditions) included Creston, Kaslo, Nakusp, Nelson, New Denver, Salmo, Canal
Flats, Cranbrook, Elkford, Invermere, Kimberley, Sparwood, Rossland, Trail, and
Warfield. The only community found to be prohibiting the public consumption of
cannabis products was Castlegar.
Commercial Production Regulations: Commercial cannabis production was
found to be permitted in all Regional Districts. Production was prohibited in
Salmo, Montrose and Nelson. All other municipalities in the study area either
allowed commercial cannabis production or have not yet addressed it.

Future research recommendations

Data sourcing and methods

Given the recent nature of cannabis legalization in Canada, this data is almost sure to change in
the coming years. Therefore it is recommended that further studies be done in the future
concerning these and other aspects of cannabis regulation in the Kootenays. It is also
recommended that similar analyses be performed on other regions of British Columbia and
Canada in order to show any broad geographical trends regulation.

The bulk of this analysis consisted of assembling data on 47 different municipalities
through a mixture of online research of bylaws and correspondence with municipal
offices via email and phone. Arcmap polygons for different census subdivisions were
sourced from the Selkirk College database
Matisse Simard
Selkirk College
IEP 271 GIS Applications II
March 18, 2019

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Tracey Harvey, for all of her help and support with this
project. I would also like to acknowledge all of the staff at the municipal offices
which I contacted for this study, they were nothing but helpful and professional.