Suburban mall eyed for London retail pot shop

One of seven regional pot lottery winners plans to open a store in a northwest London plaza, Postmedia News has learned. Christopher Comrie disclosed Tuesday in an application submitted to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), the province’s pot regulator, that he wants to open a recreational marijuana store in a commercial plaza at 666 Wonderland Rd. This means London is a step away from landing one of Ontario’s first 25 cannabis retailers when the brick-and-mortar stores are allowed to open in the spring. The prospective pot shop is good news for London, says one local cannabis activist, but a single outlet is hardly enough to serve a city of nearly 400,000, plus residents from surrounding Southwestern Ontario communities.

“Of course it’s a pleasant surprise, but it still doesn’t change the bizarreness of the way the cannabis legalization has been rolled out in Ontario,” longtime marijuana advocate Eric Shepperd said Tuesday. “Not even close will it be adequate. The black market, of course, is going to continue to thrive.”

The plaza where Comrie proposes opening his store has two vacant spaces where restaurants the Oarhouse and McGinnis Landing had operated before closing last year. The AGCO allocated seven of the first 25 licences to the west region, a vast area stretching from Windsor to Waterloo to Niagara and includes London. Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservatives had initially promised to grant an unlimited number of retail licences when the stores are allowed to open on April 1, but the government switched gears in December and announced only 25 licences would be awarded through a lottery system.

The AGCO received more than 12,000 applications to open stores in the west region. Comrie was one of six individuals and one numbered company to be selected. Comrie’s proposed store, which will be called Central Cannabis, and the other lottery winners are now under the gun to open their doors by April 1.

The operators must submit a retail licence application with extensive detail on the timeline for getting a cannabis store up and running. They’ll be subject to a background check, which includes scrutiny of tax records and financial statements. The 25 winners also have to submit a $50,000 letter of credit and pay a non-refundable $6,000 fee to the AGCO. If applicants don’t pass the AGCO background check, the province will turn to a wait list. Retailers that fail to open by April 1 will be fined $12,500, while those still not in business at the end of the month get dinged $50,000. Shepperd was critical of the location of what may be London’s only legal pot retailer, saying it should be closer to the core. “People will be hard-pressed to get there,” he said, adding he anticipates massive lines and supply shortages at the proposed store.

“There will be no change to the status quo other than there will be one legal option that most people won’t use.” Municipalities have no say where cannabis retailers are located. The AGCO only requires the businesses be more than 150 metres from schools. London politicians and the public have until Feb. 26 to raise any concerns about the proposed location of Central Cannabis to the AGCO.