The Waitaki District Council's efforts to draw up a legal highs policyhave failed to fire up people to comment on whether they agree with it, despite the controversy when outlets existed in Oamaru.
The council called for public submissions on February 20 on a draft for psychoactive substances, setting rules for the location of outlets, which have to be licensed to sell the legal highs.
Submissions closed yesterday and only 10 had been received by Wednesday.
The policy sets rules for the location of licensed legal highs outlets but cannot ban them or make their establishment impossible.
Under the council's draft, outlets would be restricted to a small area in central Oamaru and not allowed in any of the district's towns.
Cr Jim Hopkins said this was an important policy and he would have expected greater interest and more submissions.
At a council meeting yesterday, he asked staff if the deadline for submissions could be extended, but was told that, under the special consultative process, it could not.
However, Waitaki Mayor Gary Kircher suggested councillors wait until submissions closed to see how many were finally received.
At that stage, they could then consider what options were open to it.
The draft policy restricts outlets to the Business 1 zone in Oamaru's central business district, around Thames St.
Because of other restrictions, outlets could not be established in the district's other towns.
Restrictions include areas near schools, child-care facilities, social welfare agencies, pharmacies, medical centres, cultural facilities, sports grounds, reserves, places of worship, any property in the residential zone and even the Alps 2 Ocean cycleway.
Outlets have to be 50m away from sensitive sites, which means only a handful of buildings between Dee and Wear Sts on Thames St being available for outlets.
A public hearing of submissions is planned on April 1, with the policy being adopted on April 29.
