Norfolk County in Ontario has concluded five years of bylaw enforcement of cannabis production sites, according to a new report.

The southern Ontario county says it was the first in Canada to take steps to manage personal and designated medical grow licenses through local zoning bylaws, leading to significant enforcement measures and an apparent end to any new, similar production sites. 

The county estimates its efforts led to the removal or destruction of more than 400,000 cannabis plants.

When cannabis was legalized in late 2018, Norfolk County established a new zoning bylaw to address concerns with setbacks from neighbouring residences and site plan control issues such as parking, lighting, and odour emissions. 

The new report, shared with council on February 11, details enforcement actions over the previous five-year period, which concluded in October 2024.

Under local bylaws, cannabis facilities without filtration systems are required to have a 300m setback from neighbouring homes, while those with suitable filtration require a 150m setback. 

The county first issued warning letters to locations suspected of operating a non-commercial cannabis operation. The county says these letters were mostly ignored, so it began issuing fines under its zoning bylaw. 

The report says that ten federally licensed commercial cannabis producers (LPs) operating in the county complied with the requirements, but not one of the many other designated producers did. 

Over the five years of bylaw investigation, the county fielded complaints about 130 locations. Of those 130 complaints received from 2019 through 2024, 80 locations (61%) were found to be producing cannabis by the time the investigations were finished. 

Three locations were reported to the OPP for minor Cannabis Act violations, and three others were determined to have Legal Non-Conforming status under the county’s bylaw.

Forty properties were found to be producing cannabis in violation of zoning, leading to charges, with 82 property owners facing 166 charges. Four of those property owners were charged twice because they were found to still be growing cannabis after the first charges were laid by county bylaw. Only one of the 40 locations was found not guilty, as they claimed to be growing hemp and not cannabis.

There were also 33 court orders issued to property owners to cease production of cannabis, and 38 owners received fines ranging from $1,000 to $120,000. There were over $800,000 in fines handed out by the courts.

Inspections also led to Norfolk County Bylaw executing five search warrants for evidence of cannabis production that led to the destruction of 82,520 cannabis plants. Another 270,920 cannabis plants are said to have been taken out of production voluntarily by growers. 

In addition, county bylaw also provided information to the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), leading to the execution of police search warrants where another 82,000 cannabis plants were located and destroyed, with criminal charges filed. The report estimates a total of $430 million worth of potential cannabis destroyed as a result of these bylaw efforts, based on an estimate of a “finished street value” of about $1000 per mature cannabis plant. 

Norfolk County received $237,000 from the Ontario Cannabis Legalization Implementation Fund, which it used to help pay for these enforcement services. 

So far, there have also been approximately $800,000 in cannabis-related fines given out through various provincial offences. A total of $220,000 of these fines have been collected as of the end of January 2025, a collection rate of about 27%. These payments go to county bylaw to further offset enforcement costs. 

h/t to the Simcoe Reformer

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The political blame-game

Norfolk County is the most prominent example of this kind of bylaw enforcement, an approach encouraged by Health Canada for several years in response to complaints about personal and designated production sites. 

Managing the issue of such licences has been politically contentious for many years, with many law enforcement agencies, municipalities, and counties claiming they don’t have the time or ability to deal with such locations. For its part, Health Canada notes that the system that allows such personal and designated sites has been repeatedly upheld by the courts in Canada. 

Federal regulations allow for cannabis to be grown for medical purposes by someone authorized by a medical professional, or to assign a designated grower to do so for them. Such designated sites can allow for up to four different production licences, often leading to a large number of plants being grown in a commercial capacity, at times even in residential settings. This has led to complaints about the smell of cannabis, light pollution, and concerns about crime. 

In the report, Norfolk County claims that not one of the designated producer locations in Norfolk County was ever inspected by Health Canada for compliance with Cannabis Act regulations, adding that Health Canada has said that they have no capacity to do so.

However, Health Canada has ramped up inspections of such licences, with more than 300 in the last two years. The most recent annual report also included 20 compliance and enforcement activities (other than inspection) for registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes, such as conducting seizures and destructions.

Such inspections often need to be accompanied by local law enforcement to ensure the safety of inspectors. 

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Of the 160 inspections of registered personal and designated production of cannabis for medical purposes locations in 2023-2024, 74 were in British Columbia, 63 in Ontario, 18 in Quebec, and 5 in New Brunswick. In the previous year, the majority of such inspections (115 out of 170) were in Ontario.

Health Canada also recently sent a memo to provincial colleges of physicians and surgeons, advising them that it may contact healthcare practitioners to ask for evidence to support the amount of cannabis they have authorized for their patients. The memo highlights the regulator’s ongoing efforts since 2019 to address authorizations of large amounts of cannabis several times over the industry average. 

The federal regulator has also refused or revoked over 1,400 registrations, including more than 700 for public health and safety reasons. This represents a 113% increase in refusals and revocations, and a 423% increase in the number of refusals and revocations made on the grounds of public health and public safety since March 2022.

In 2024, police in Ontario seized 345 kilograms of cannabis and thousands of cannabis plants from an address in Elgin County after a referral from Health Canada. The referral from the inspectors noted that the address was associated with three expired Health Canada registrations to produce or designate someone to produce cannabis for medical purposes.

Many municipalities in Canada have long expressed frustration at what they feel is an inability to manage these non-commercial, personal and designated medical cannabis licenses, which often operate in residential zones. Despite not allowing for commercial sales, these licences can allow for very large plant totals based on a doctor’s recommendation. 

In 2020 in British Columbia, the Sunshine Coast Regional District tabled a resolution at the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities meeting calling for more power for municipalities to deal with personal and designated medical grow licenses in residential communities.

Because they are not commercially regulated like federally licensed cannabis growers and processors, there are no federal requirements for things like odour control. However, municipalities and counties can establish their own zoning bylaws to address this issue, as is the case in Norfolk County. 

A 2024 report from Winnipeg city staff says there have been no public complaints or licence applications following the designated medical cannabis production zoning amendments adopted in 2022. The city adopted its new bylaw to regulate designated medical cannabis production sites in April 2022 following community concerns about such operations occurring in residential areas.

Such licences have been under increased scrutiny in the past few years from several municipalities and many Conservative MPs, especially in Ontario, where the OPP says criminal enterprises are exploiting the Health Canada medical, personal and designated cannabis production regime. 

In 2022, municipalities in Alberta also called for limits on medical cannabis grows in residential areas.

In 2020, Diane Finley, the MP from Haldimand-Norfolk raised the issue in the House, saying the current regulations create a “ loophole” that large-scale growers are taking advantage of.

Featured image shows the inside of a production site raided by Norfolk County Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in 2020

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