The City of Vancouver is stepping up enforcement on marijuana dispensaries that aren’t playing by its rules – even as the number of pot shops apparently continues to rise.

The city has issued $250 fines to three dispensaries, all of which opened since last October, for allegedly not having a business licence. The city isn’t identifying their locations, but said none applied in its permit and licensing process.

Their existence is a sign that the number of storefronts selling weed is continuing to climb to a number as high as 200, said local marijuana activist Jodie Emery. Some of them may be gambling that city rules – which say dispensaries must not be within 300 metres of some facilities – could change.

“I hope at some point the city realizes that these are pretty absurd conditions and they should review them. But it all depends on how many dispensaries are willing to challenge it. There may be some who refuse to close and refuse to pay fines and go on to class action lawsuits,” she said.

Just a few years after emerging, the dispensary business continues to explode in Vancouver. A count in May 2015 identified some 84 dispensaries operating in the city. Local media found 93 shortly afterwards. But by October, 176 applied for licences in the first stage of the city’s licensing process.

Of those 176 that applied late last year, only 11 were more than 300 meters from schools, community centres, and centres for vulnerable youth. Those are necessary conditions to make it to the second stage of city licensing.

Sixty-two shops that didn’t make it have appealed to the city’s Board of Variance, which normally hears zoning appeals. Those numbers are large as well – even hearing four appeals a meeting, it will take until November to hear them all, according to the city schedule.

At a meeting Wednesday, the board approved appeals from Point Grey Cannabis, at 3357 W. 4th Ave., and another dispensary at 211 East 16th.

Point Grey Cannabis was only 295 meters from Bayview Elementary School, but the Board allowed them to proceed as the exact measurement was in dispute. The application from 211 East 16th also proceeded for similar reasons. Neither company wanted to talk about the ruling.

But applications from Karuna Health Foundation, which has two locations on Broadway and 4th Avenue, were denied.

Owner Sasha Cowan said that was a tragedy – he said he had spent more than a million dollars renovating his storefront so that it would be wheelchair accessible, and had years of city permits for work done on his store. 

He called his dispensary a “great model for Vancouver.”

“It was $935,000 to build everything to code. To not build it to code would be half that,” Cowan said.

The board, led by Vancouver architect Gilbert Tan, said it was sympathetic to Cowan’s plight and offered him a six-month extension before the rules would apply.

“We’re going to appeal, we’re going to keep fighting,” he said. “What else can you do?”