A prize house being offered this Spring in the 2016 Princess Margaret Cancer Centre Home Lottery has been withdrawn from the contest by the lottery operator. The home, situated in Markham, Ontario, has been replaced with a cash prize of just over $1.3 million. The reason cited by The Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation is that the property backs onto a home that is used for the legal growth of marijuana for personal use resulting in an “intrusive odour in the neighbourhood” and complaints from a number of local residents. Let it be noted that the owner of the home does have a licence from Health Canada for this purpose.

In the federal governments endeavours to “legalize” marijuana, it will be interesting to see the impact of legal grow-ops in our neighbourhoods. Presumably, future legislation would contain limits on the number of plants that can be grown, but as we see in Markham even a small operation can affect the immediate neighbourhood and, without a doubt, surrounding property values.