Business relief fund, plastic bag ban among approvals at Regina City Council

Regina’s City Council pushed through a lot of approvals at Wednesday’s meeting including help for businesses, cannabis zoning bylaws, and for money to bring more events to Regina.

Among the issues getting the thumbs up was a new $2 million relief fund for businesses in the city recovering from and adapting to the new realities of COVID-19.

It will provide help to businesses in the form of grants between $1,000 and $25,000.

After only a couple of questions and explanations council voted for the program unanimously.

Cannabis competition

Cannabis store owners got a bit of a reprieve on Wednesday from a potential wave of competition this fall.

The SLGA is changing regulations to allow an open market system as of September and the city needed to change some of its bylaws to move them in line with the provincial government’s changes.

Some cannabis store owners came out against it, however, saying their business will suffer if several competitors are able to open up. Jill Anderson, owner of a Tweed location in Regina, said it will hamper efforts to eradicate the black market.

“Suddenly having 20 or 30 more stores, we’re just going to be struggling to compete amongst ourselves instead of focusing on trying to eliminate the black market,” said Anderson to council on Wednesday.

After some discussion among the councillors, the motion was amended to allow the zoning and bylaw changes, but also to impose a moratorium on any new cannabis stores until a report can come back to council in the first quarter of 2021 about the economic implications of the cannabis industry in the city.

Councillor Andrew Stevens added the amendment.

“If we’re asking for an economic impact assessment, more information, it only makes sense to wait for that information before we finalize,” said Stevens.

Attracting more events to Regina

City Council didn’t take long to approve putting $375,000 into a fund to support work to bring big events to Regina. The fund will be administered by Regina’s Event, Convention and Trade Show Alliance.

According to the city report, the fund will be “a key tool to attract future events to our city and help restore our visitor economy once the pandemic passes.”

John Lee, with Economic Development Regina, spoke to council. He said this kind of work doesn’t lend itself to overnight success. With events being cancelled this year because of the pandemic he said they’re working on events for next year and the year after.

Lee said the alliance board has identified this fund and this work as a pillar of recovery from the pandemic, and pointed out that other cities have seen the City of Regina’s success in attracting events and are gearing up their own efforts to compete.

Council also approved $440,000 to create a transit master plan. There were a couple questions about why a consultant needed to be hired for this when there are people within the city’s employment already who could help develop a plan. City administration replied that this plan will look to the next 25 years and needs a higher level of expertise.

City council also quickly passed the ban on plastic checkout bags, to come into effect in August 2021. It was clarified that if the COVID-19 pandemic is still a problem in force at that time, the ban would be pushed back.

City Square Plaza

One of the few items voted down on Wednesday, councillors will have another month to think about it before deciding whether to re-name City Square Plaza after former mayor Pat Fiacco.

The decision was set as a notice of motion for this meeting, and Mayor Michael Fougere tried to move up the motion to this meeting. However the vote was not unanimous, so it was shot down.