Metro Vancouver’s municipal leaders are bracing for a significant increase in odour complaints when marijuana is legalized this fall.

This follows a sudden spike in the number of complaints the regional district has received involving a legal commercial cannabis grow operation that recently started operating in Langley.

“Here we have a new industry that’s in its infancy in terms of being legal, and now it’s out in the open and it needs to be dealt with like any other industry. They’re not going away,” said Township of Langley Mayor Jack Froese.

Between Jan. 1, 2015, and July 31, 2018, Metro Vancouver, which regulates air quality in the region, received 250 complaints related to cannabis, all of which mentioned odour, in addition to other concerns such as light pollution, contaminants leaching into the ground, and particulate or chemical mists being used to trap odour.

The vast majority of the complaints (225) were lodged during the first seven months of 2018, and all but five from this year were linked to the B.C. Tweed greenhouse facility in the Township of Langley.

The business is a partnership between SunSelect Produce and Ontario-based Canopy Growth Corp., which have also partnered on a greenhouse in east Delta.

Kathy Preston, the air-quality regulatory lead in Metro Vancouver’s environmental regulation and enforcement division, said B.C. Tweed is aware of the complaints and they have been forwarded to Health Canada. She said Metro is working with the facility to bring them into compliance with Metro’s bylaws.

New federal regulations permit cannabis to be grown in greenhouses and outdoors, not only in secure indoor facilities.

The province has dictated that cannabis will be considered an agricultural crop, and legislation protects farmers from liability when it comes to nuisance odours, noises, dust and other disturbances from normal farming practices.

Regional districts and municipalities are caught in the middle, trying to deal with odour, light and noise issues that affect quality of life for their residents even though they have limited powers.

Members of Metro Vancouver’s board of directors say odour complaints will increase once cannabis is legal and more businesses start legal grow operations.

Pitt Meadows Mayor John Becker said he finds it “completely unacceptable” that cannabis will be considered an agricultural crop and managed as such.

“Our community faces the real prospect of having much of our urban core, depending on the prevailing winds, inundated with the smell of cannabis,” Becker said. “I have no philosophical bias against cannabis — I support the notion of decriminalization. However, it is not appropriate for the vast majority of our residents to be put at risk of having their livability degraded because of the province’s desire to encourage cannabis production.”

He said his concerns are shared by other Metro communities that have a high percentage of farm land.

Delta Mayor Lois Jackson said there is a “very distinct odour of marijuana” in the vicinity of the B.C. Tweed facility in east Delta, but although people have noticed the smell there have not been many formal complaints. She attributes that to the fact that it is in an agricultural area.

“If you were to put a grow op closer to the urban area, the fringe, then we would certainly have some problems,” Jackson said, pointing out that it is a possibility when legalization happens.

She said checks and balances in terms of how to mitigate odour, light and noise concerns need to be in place and clear to proponents before facilities are built or converted.

“I really feel we should be looking at this all at the front end,” she said. “It’s so easy for senior levels of government to put something in place, and by the time it rifles down to the local levels of government it’s hard to fix.”

Froese said the township has been trying to prepare for legalization, but it was difficult before the regulations were released. He believes legalization is taking place too quickly.

“There’s a lot of unknowns,” Froese said. “As municipalities we don’t have very much regulatory authority to deal with it. We’re kind of caught in the middle.”

Last month, Pitt Meadows and the Township of Langley passed council resolutions asking the premier and minister of agriculture for a moratorium on cannabis production on agricultural land, until such time as Victoria consults with farmers, municipal governments, industry and the public.

A resolution from Delta asking for restrictions or a prohibition related to use of agricultural land reserve land for cannabis cultivation will also be discussed at the Union of B.C. Municipalities annual conference in September.

The Fraser Valley Regional District has received calls about odour from cannabis operations in its electoral areas in the past, but the regional district does not keep data about those calls.

The district does not have regulatory authority over odour issues in its communities — complaints from its six municipalities are handled by those municipalities, complaints about illegal grow ops go to the RCMP, complaints about personal use licences are sent to Health Canada, and complaints about large commercial grow ops are handled by the Agricultural Land Commission.

Although there may be more complaints following legalization, spokesperson Jennifer Kinneman said the regional district does not plan to change its protocol.