Kingsville passes lighting and odour by-law

By Mark Ribble

KINGSVILLE — The Town of Kingsville wants their dark night skies back and Kingsville Council took a big step in that direction Monday night, when they voted unanimously to pass a by-law regulating lighting and odours.

The bright lights from greenhouses have been a contentious issue for the past few years in this area and despite some protest from greenhouse operators themselves, council went ahead with the vote.

The odours, particularly from cannabis growing greenhouses, have also been a hot topic of late.

George Dekker and Bert Mucci, representing Mucci Farms, spoke as a delegation to council prior to the by-law decision.

Dekker urged council to defer the by-law to allow growers to have some dialogue with the municipality about language within the by-law.

He also suggested the by-law be broken into two separate by-laws — one for light and one for odour.

Mucci explained that they have 95 acres of greenhouses that are lit, with 75 of those acres employing blackout curtains already. Curtains are on order for the remaining greenhouses.

He also compared the Kingsville operations to those that they have in Ohio, where local government there mandated early on that the lighting be controlled.

The Ohio locations are allowed to have 10 per cent of the light exposed to the outside world, which Mucci says is not very much.

“Over there, it’s no brighter than the local parking lots or ball diamonds,” he said.

Residents in Leamington and Kingsville have been pressing for more restrictions on lighting and odour issues regarding greenhouse operations. Here, the Kingsville sky is lit up in the early morning of October 26, just hours before Kingsville passed their new by-law.

Sun photo

While Mucci Farms has been ahead of the curve when it comes to blackout curtains, he feels that growers are all being lumped in together.

“Kingsville and Leamington dropped the ball on this,” he said. “In Ohio, the by-law was set in 30-50 days. The by-law here should have been in place before the season started.”

Councillor Kim DeYong agreed with Mucci. “I couldn’t agree more that it should have been in place already,” she said.

According to Mucci, they have spent $1.5 million on curtains so far, and another $2.5 million on odour control. He invited councillors to come out and see for themselves.

Councillor Laura Lucier expressed her gratitude to Mucci for getting out ahead of the problem.

“Thank you for complying with a large portion of your greenhouses,” she said. “If all greenhouses were at 90 per cent, we’d be happy to defer, but given what we are seeing, I believe we have to move forward.”

And move forward, they did. In the end, council voted to pass the by-law, which will now prohibit and regulate odours and lighting from greenhouse operations within the municipality.

To facilitate that, they also approved an additional $25,000 in overtime and $25,000 in legal enforcement costs.

The maximum fine for corporations is $50,000 for the first offence and $100,000 for any subsequent offence.

Leamington Council was to meet Tuesday to discuss a similar by-law proposal.