Premier Kathleen Wynne is not sure how consultations on the province’s cannabis stores went to pot — but she’s now ordered that school boards have a say in where the outlets are located.After learning that three of the four communities where the first shops will open had no input, Wynne said she’s told the Ontario Cannabis Store to go back and talk to them, and to make sure that happens for all future site decisions.“I have been told that, as far as we know, school boards were not officially consulted, that there was some sort of online process that they could take part in, but there hasn’t been an official conversation with school boards,” Wynne told reporters Monday. Read more: Meet the neighbours of Toronto’s first legal pot shopHow did one of Ontario’s first legal pot stores end up next to a Toronto public school?Opinion | Cannabis debate: Legal pot is far safer for youth than relying on black market marijuana“I’ve asked our folks to go back and to determine how to fill that gap,” she said, adding that it’s important the boards, and municipalities, are consulted because the school boards “know, for example, where their kids go at lunchtime. They know where they go after school.”“So we’re going to make sure that happens,” said Wynne, who began her political career as a trustee with the Toronto District School Board.The premier said such discussions not only need to happen in Toronto — where the proposed Gerrard St. E. location is just up the street from an elementary school, and in a plaza that’s a popular lunchtime hangout — “but they need to be part of the conversation wherever this is happening.”Last week, sites for the first four outlets were announced — in Toronto as well as Thunder Bay, Guelph and Kingston. The Thunder Bay school board was alone in saying it had played a part in the decision.It is unclear why ot ...
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