Cosmetic pesticide vote 'disappoints' Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee

Charlottetown Mayor Clifford Lee says he is "disappointed" that council voted down a resolution to create a cosmetic pesticide bylaw Monday.

The vote came just two months after council voted unanimously for the bylaw during it's first reading.

"I campaigned on the cosmetic pesticide bylaw. And for this thing to pass in May … and all of the sudden thrown out in its entirety two months later, I think council has some explaining to the citizens of Charlottetown (as) to how they're voting," said Lee.

"Quite frankly, I'm disappointed."

Councillor Bob Doiron, chair of the environment and sustainability committee, says he would rather see the province issue a P.E.I.-wide ban.

And council agreed.

During Monday's council meeting, Deputy Mayor Mike Duffy suggested there has been pressure to get councillors to change their vote on the bylaw. 

Doiron spoke out against those accusations.

"When someone says there's backroom deals or whatever, there's not. I never called a councillor and asked him to change his mind and go with what I thought was right," he said.

"What I felt was right, I put it on the table, if you don't agree with it, don't vote for it. I wanted to see it go for a provincial regulation. I don't think that 72 or 74 different communities should have a bylaw each one different from the other."

In the fall of 2014 the city lobbied the province to assume municipal power over pesticides.