City moves to shut down illegal pot shops
The city’s push to issue business licences to illegal marijuana dispensaries got more complicated over the weekend as 23 pot shops were ticketed for defying an order to close their doors while another 22 abided by the city’s deadline to shut down.
To date, the city has issued 44 tickets, including 21 to three separate shops that did not participate in the city's new regulation scheme.
Andreea Toma, the city’s chief licensing inspector, said the city will continue enforcement this week and expects to issue more $250 tickets to pot shops that refused to shut their doors last Friday. Toma said additional tickets will be issued to those shops targeted over the weekend.
“The risk of staying open, outside of regulations, is that they can get the fines on a daily basis,” said Toma, noting none of the inspections of the pot shops required the assistance of the Vancouver Police Department. “At the same time, we are also looking at prosecutions and injunctions.”
The city imposed a deadline of April 29 for all marijuana shops to close that didn’t fall into a permitted zone or were too close to a school or community centre. The city made the order six months ago.
–Mike Howell, Vancouver Courier
BC government cuts back on film tax credits
The BC government is cutting back on the film tax credits enjoyed by so many foreign productions in recent years.
The province announced Monday (May 2) that tax credits for movie and TV producers will drop from 33 per cent to 28 per cent beginning in October.
Meanwhile, foreign visual effects and animation studios with offices in Vancouver will see their tax credits go from 17.5 per cent to 16 per cent.
The cost of those tax credits were forecast to hit nearly $500 million this fiscal year, according to the provincial budget released in February.
Provincial tax credits for the film and TV industry averaged about $255 million a year from the 2010-11 to the 2013-14 fiscal years.
Since then, the industry has been booming as the lower Canadian dollar brought a flurry of US productions north of the border.
–Tyler Orton, Business in Vancouver
