SPROUTING LIKE WEEDS
Pot shops appearing across region
This past spring, nearly a year and a half after Ottawa legalized recreational cannabis in Canada, Windsor finally received provincial approval of the city's first legal cannabis store.
Since J. Supply Co. opened its downtown doors last March, however, local pot shops have begun sprouting up like weeds, with the sixth such city business, Sessions Windsor at 650 Division Rd., hosting its grand opening Dec. 11, with three more retail businesses that followed before the end of 2020.
Windsor appears to have caught the eye of those interested in peddling legal pot — as of mid-december, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) had received 32 applications for retail store locations across the city, a higher number than even London, with nearly twice the population. Five of those hopefuls are eyeing downtown addresses.
Essex County was even slower out of the gate, with Tony's Joint in Essex being the first to open on Oct. 17, two years to the day on which Canada became only the second country in the world (after Uruguay) to declare the adult recreational use of marijuana as legal. But the county is also starting to see growth momentum.
“I think 32 stores is way too much for Windsor — that's insane,” said Craig Wiggins, a cannabis industry analyst and managing director of The Cannalysts Inc.
With the AGCO announcing on Dec. 8 that it was doubling the monthly rate of Ontario retail store approvals from 40 to 80, Wiggins expects the number of new Windsor pot shops to start sprouting even faster in 2021.
“It'll be interesting to see who can survive,” Wiggins said, adding he doesn't expect all those currently in the application queue will still be around in a few years in an increasingly competitive market.
Meanwhile, it'll be great for consumers and prices, said Wiggins.
“The saturation of the market is definitely coming ... it's going to be competitive,” said Mike Plesa, general manager of Sessions Windsor.
It was the Sessions Cannabis company's seventh retail outlet in Ontario. Before 2020 was over, the company had an eighth store, and Lakeshore its first, with Sessions Lakeshore at 35 Amy Croft Dr. getting its retail licence approval from the AGCO.
Personal on-site service and offerings — Sessions Windsor has 300 different products, from flower and vapes to concentrates and edibles — will make the difference, said Plesa, adding his company's business model is an upscale look without upscale prices.
Leamington saw its first pot shop, The Cannabis Retail Store — in a shopping plaza at 280 Erie St. S. — open on Dec. 12.
Products and displays give it what one cannabis connoisseur calls a “shrine to Aphria” aura, shining a spotlight on the nearby operation of Aphria Inc., Leamington's biggest employer and one of Canada's leading licensed cannabis producers.
With the recent AGCO approval of Higher Limits Cannabis Co. at 400 Sandwich St. S., Amherstburg now boasts two retail pot shops, with The Amherstburg Cannabis Co. at 268 Sandwich St. S. Interestingly, and subject to provincial approval, a third Amherstburg retail store — Maggies Cannabis Emporium — plans to set up along the same stretch of Sandwich Street .
The AGCO is currently reviewing other county retail store applications for Leamington and Kingsville. Helping make Windsor more attractive to prospective pot entrepreneurs, perhaps, is the fact municipal councils in both neighbouring towns of Tecumseh and Lasalle have decided, so far, against permitting such businesses within their borders.
According to the province, each local council can make that choice, and a number of Ontario municipalities are taking a wait-and-see approach to what is an entirely new industry in Canada.
Once permission is granted by a local government, however, there's no turning back.