A revealing conversation unfurled during the public hearing held before the passage of St. Albert's new Land Use Bylaw.
What can be closer together, according to the letter of the law: Strip clubs, weed stores or billboards?
As developer and former St. Albert councillor Ray Watkins illustrated in conversation and with a convenient slide presentation, billboards appear to be the more highly regulated object.
According to Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis (AGLC), there are 12 active cannabis store licences in St. Albert. According to Watkins, there are exactly five traffic-facing billboards with digital displays and zero adult establishments, as they're now referred to in the Land Use Bylaw (LUB).
Billboards without digital displays which are facing the same traffic must be at least 150 metres apart and 150m from any other freestanding sign, according to section 6.13.5 of the bylaw. Those with digital displays must be at least 300m from one another.
By contrast, an adult entertainment site must be just 25m from another similar establishment, 100m from churches and schools and 150m from the nearest residential district.
Cannabis stores must be at least 100m apart from each other, and 150m from schools.
Watkins describes the sign distances as "excessive," arguing many parcels on St. Albert Trail don't even have 150 or 300 metres of frontage. He referred to the one traffic-facing billboard on St. Albert Trail, on the wall outside the former gas station at Gate Avenue.
"It provides $500 in revenue per month for Petro Canada, right?" he said. "So, I don't see why we couldn't have two signs there on that wall.
"You don't really have a problem with digital signs or billboard signs in St. Albert. The clutter is created by temporary and unauthorized signage."
He said fixed billboards are easier to regulate than such unauthorized signs. Speaking quickly to get a word in with the former councillor as he strained against the hearing's five-minute speaking limit, Mayor Cathy Heron said she agreed unregulated signs are an issue.
His presentation included a slide that, among other things, claimed that in St. Albert, you "can have strip clubs and cannabis stores closer together than advertising signage."
Watkins complained he's brought this request up with city staff three times to no avail.
Coun. Sheena Hughes asked for the definition of "adult services" under the LUB and whether the new draft changes if and where they can operate.
A staffer explained that strip clubs were included in the previous LUB, with a description of "Adult Entertainment Facility" that was pared back to "Establishment-Adult" in the new draft.
"Adult theatres or erotic dance clubs," as they're described on page 304, are allowable in a couple of districts.
"It's very clearly defined," Mayor Heron said. "And it was there before, just under a different name."
She quipped that her predecessor, former-mayor Nolan Crouse, tried to forbid such businesses from operating within St. Albert, and that it was explained to him that this would expose the city to litigation because they are perfectly legal.
The smallest mall
Watkins is also developing a site on the southwest corner of the intersection of Sir Winston Churchill Drive and Grandin Road, which he said is just 1,200 square metres, 30m by 40m. He asked council to change the zoning on the site, which is contaminated, from MU-2 to Neighbourhood Convenience Commercial.
He said the MU-2 zone is written for much larger parcels, and that his parcel is by far the smallest of the three MU-2 zoned sites in the city. He said there are a basket of studies that developments on MU-2 zoned sites that envision a multi-building complex, where he plans just one building.
City council voted to pass the LUB through second and third readings without changes to the sign distance regulations, though amendments are still possible before the LUB becomes law.
Mayor Heron asked Watkins to send councillors both of his presentations.
