Sessions Cannabis opens in Heritage Plaza
City’s sixth legal pot shop expected slow inspections to further delay opening
The owner of a new Peterborough pot shop is excited to finally be open after trying to get licensing for almost a year for the new Sessions Cannabis retail store.
The franchise store in the Heritage Plaza at 550 Lansdowne St. W. opened its doors Tuesday as the sixth legal marijuana store for Peterborough.
Owner/franchisee Jim Buchan, a longtime resident of the Peterborough area, was among several local applicants who have been trying to open shops for about a year since the province threw the market wide open to any qualified applicant after initially using a lottery system to select stores.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario slowed down approvals because the COVID-19 pandemic restricted inspections, but it has recently stepped up the pace of authorizations across the province.
“We have been sitting on this lease here since February of last year and have had a lot of overhead costs and insurance costs,” Buchan said. He wasn’t even expecting to be able to open until later this year.
“Given the licensing and the delays, we were told it would be April or May 2021, then they moved it forward which was quite nice,” Buchan said.
He said he owns two other Sessions Cannabis shops in Oshawa and North York, making it quite busy for him and staff.
“The last five or six weeks has been a pretty big push for us,” Buchan said. “It has been good and fun for us, we are really excited to have the third one open here today.”
He said the reason he decided to go with a franchise storefront instead of a single standalone business model is because of what the chain can offer to franchisees like himself.
“Why we went with a Sessions franchise is because they have a great training program for the team and they really work closely with a lot of the producer partners, the people who are making the products, the large cannabis producers,” Buchan said.
Sessions Cannabis also has a great esthetic mixed with an open airy atmosphere, he said, plus the company is involved in communities through education and finding local operators for the stores.
One of the hard parts about opening a cannabis retail store in the middle of a pandemic is not being able to have customers in the store to interact with, he said.
“In a cannabis store, you want to have people come in,” Buchan said. “You want to educate people, we want to show them the products we have, we think we have built a beautiful looking store, we would like to have people inside of it.”
The cannabis business is competitive these days, he said, noting the chain’s biggest competitor is also one of their suppliers.
“The (online) Ontario Cannabis Store, who is our exclusive wholesaler, is also our major competition and they offer free same-day delivery throughout Ontario and a very wide product selection,” he said.
Sessions is initially offering about 300 unique products for people to choose and expects to increase that to around 400 soon.
“As we start bringing in more product we will probably be in or around 400 unique SKUs (stock-keeping units) that would be spread among cannabis products like flower, prerolls, vapes, edibles, CBD products, beverages, and accessories like pipes and glassware, bongs and rolling papers,” Barker said.
Because of the ongoing COVID-19 lockdown, service is being offered through pickup and delivery initially.
Other Peterborough area marijuana store applicants that have cleared public notice periods but are awaiting approval include: Runway Pot at 1524 Lansdowne St. W., Sparq Retail at 861 Lansdowne St. W. Unit 4, Kawartha Leafs at 1535 Water St. Unit 2, Growers Retail at 566 Frank Hill Rd., Northern Lights Cannabis at 51 Lansdowne St. W., Mellow Leaf at 724 Lansdowne St. W., Miss Jones at 1154 Chemong Rd., SunFish Cannabis at 112 Queen St. Unit 1 in Lakefield and Flowertown Cannabis at 874 Ward St. Unit 4 in Bridgenorth.