Medicinal marijuana a growing concern in Port Colborne

Port Colborne has a new business in town – and not everybody’s happy about it.

Once it has approval from Health Canada – expected in days – Muileboom Organics will grow about 3,000 marijuana plants. With an expected yield of 4500 kilograms they say they can fill 3,000 prescriptions each year.

“Our practice is such that we are gong to put in place every kind of health standard, similar to what you’d see in a hospital or health care facility.”

Medical standards or not, there are people in this lakeside community that don’t like a marijuana grow in their neighbourhood.

Frank Scott is worried about losing value on his property. “We enjoy our property down here. Everyone looks after it. We pay a lot of taxes as residential. And does something like this belong in a residential area”

The Muileboom greenhouse is zoned agricultural.

The Muileboom family used to grow tomatoes. They had up to 6,000 tomato plants in this greenhouse. But they say they couldn’t compete with the big tomato growers in Leamington. And there’s a lot more money in marijuana.

Up to $32 million worth of dried marijuana can be stored in the greenhouse vault. While neighbours are worried about crime and break-ins, Marc Kealey says they have cameras, and dogs. and a vault that’s secure.

“It’s so secure, you could fly a plane into the building and not break the vault.”

Former Prime Minister John Turner backs this medical marijuana grow. He’s a company board member and he’ll be in Port Colborne on April 14th when city council deals with a zoning issue related to this greenhouse.