Four years ago, about 150 Oro-Medonte residents penned letters of protest against the establishment of a cannabis operation on the outskirts of Shanty Bay, between Line 2 South and Line 3 South, owned by Medical Saints.
On Thursday, one day after Oro-Medonte council passed a bylaw that spells out what Medical Saints is allowed to do on the site, based on the Ontario Land Tribunal decision, issued on July 17, and Ontario Land Tribunal order, issued on July 19, BarrieToday visited the cannabis company’s neighbours to get their reaction to the township’s decision.
Predictably, some was positive and some was negative.
Perhaps surprisingly, some of it illustrated how fatigued people in the community are with the subject.
“It should have been closed when it started,” said one neighbour, who lives across from the facility on Line 3 South. “I can’t believe it’s still going.”
Some neighbours spoke with BarrieToday on the condition of anonymity, others would only provide a first name.
They said they have no interest in keeping the subject in the public spotlight and they had no interest in causing disturbances with their neighbours.
Bill, who lives a stone’s throw away from the cannabis farm in a subdivision just off Line 2, said he had concerns years ago, when the cannabis farm was just starting up, but those concerns have dissipated as time has passed. This was mainly because there hasn’t been much growing on the property.
“When they first started this marijuana thing, they had someone come in and take down the neighbours’ trees and put up the fence,” Bill said. “That’s the part that really bothered me.
“It’s about six-feet tall and has razor wire across the top — it looks like a prison.”
After that, Bill said, the land was cleared and it was planted with what he thought was hemp, a variety of cannabis that contains 0.3 per cent or less delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the active ingredient in cannabis that gets users “high.”
According to Bill, the cannabis farm has had no crops on it for the past couple of years.
“Right now, it doesn’t bother me at all,” he said. “I don’t think it bothers anybody anymore. There’s nothing there.”
If, or when, that changes, Larry, who lives on a property just south of the cannabis farm, will be welcoming the crop with open arms.
He’s an unabashed fan of the "devil’s lettuce" and has been for quite a few years. (Recreational cannabis use became legal in Canada in October 2018.)
“I love the smell,” Larry said. “I’ve been smoking weed for years — I’m old — and I love it.”
He said he finds smoking cannabis helps him sleep and he doesn’t understand how other people can be against it.
“I guess it’s education,” Larry opined. “I think if people learned how beneficial it is, they’d change their mind.”
Down the street, another neighbour summed up his feelings about the issue by quoting Shakespeare.
“Much ado about nothing,” he said. “It’s an agricultural crop. It’s legal. I’d rather live beside it than a pig farm.”
