Kelowna city council shut down a retail cannabis store slated for the Capri Centre on Tuesday.
It sits under 500 meters away from two other pot shops that have already been approved.
Councillor Gail Given was in favour of adding the service to a major mall.
“The most successful malls are the ones that are full service, they offer a broad range of retail establishments and this is quite a unique opportunity for the Capri Centre mall to be a much better-rounded mall,” said Given.
Other councillors argued it was unfair to muddy the cannabis market before other businesses have a chance to open.
“I don't think that we should be supporting other applicants until we give a fair shake to the 20 people how have invested in many cases their life’s' savings or a significant amount of money to get up and running. I think we owe it to them the opportunity to let them run their business and then we can revisit it once we have more data. As Mr. Smith said, he can come back and we can revisit this policy,” said Councillor Luke Stack.
Mayor Colin Basran said he's learned a lot since they set out the original guidelines and would be in favour of relooking at them down the road.
“Where I don't necessarily believe clustering is as big an issue is along auto-dependant malls along our highways. That to me is a completely different animal and I don't see it being as big a problem as it would be in South Pandosy and Downtown where we have high volumes of pedestrian’s and tourists.”
Only two cannabis stores have opened in Kelowna, with a third joining the group on Friday.
With Councillor Brad Sieben declaring a conflict of interest, the vote split 4 -4.