Wairoa mayoral candidate Camden Gaskin has multiple plans for the town if elected including a container retirement village. Photo: LDR / SUPPLIED
Wairoa mayoral candidate Camden Gaskin wants to green light a council-run medicinal cannabis business in the district.
He envisions it would employ 200 contractors and deliver significant economic benefits.
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There are four mayoral candidates in the small northern Hawke's Bay town, with Gaskin going up against incumbent Craig Little, current deputy mayor Denise Eaglesome-Karekare and Kurawari Panere.
Gaskin said, if a medicinal cannabis licence was obtained by council, a mail-order business would bring cash flow and employment opportunities to Wairoa.
"Every cannabis business that has tried to grow under lights has gone broke, apart from the ones that import product. All you need is sunlight.
"At a retail price of $100 an ounce, a mail order business will bring desperately needed cash flow and employment opportunities to Wairoa, but it would have to be kept away from under 18-year-olds."
He said if elected he would also like to help revive a culture of pub drinking, and bring horses back to Wairoa racecourse.
"The racecourse is the strongest marketing asset in town. We could have race meetings, concerts, and other events that would attract visitors to our region."
Gaskin said his father was an alcoholic, but he never knew that until he was 17.
"He would always drink at the pub. Reviving this tradition would stop drinking and smoking in households where children live."
Gaskin, now 70, said he ran a taxi business for 30 years in Wellington and then lived in Christchurch for 10 years.
He landed in Wairoa in 2018 after Googling the cheapest section available in New Zealand and coming across the town.
"After living in concrete jungles and having Boeing 747s flying overhead, I love it here where it's all birds and bush," Gaskin said of his residence.
"It's God's little acre."
Gaskin said the town should consider running its own telephonic network, delivering free Wifi to its residents.
"That would save ratepayers a hundy a month."
He would also, if elected, push for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the flooding in Wairoa during Cyclone Gabrielle.
He has multiple plans for the town if elected, including a container retirement village.
He said methamphetamine use was rife in the town and was an issue he wanted to talk about and address.
"If you want change, you have to vote for it."
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.
