POT RETAILERS READY TO GO
Two stores set to open on Oct. 17
Jeff Mooij said he might have to enlist the help of city police to sell pot when he opens one of Calgary ’s first two cannabis stores the day marijuana becomes legal in Canada.
The veteran medical marijuana consultant said his company’s location at Macleod Trail and Southland Drive S.W. could be one of only two Calgary recreational cannabis retailers to be fully approved by city and provincial officials in time to welcome customers Oct. 17.
That means there’s sure to be a historic green rush at the shop in the Southland Crossing strip mall, said Mooij.
“It’s going to be crazy, a lineup all day long — I might have to have police directing traffic,” said Mooij, who heads up Four20 Premium Market.
“I’m going to be a major drug dealer now, I’m opening up a store on the first day of legalization.”
The Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) announced Thursday that 17 stores will open across the province on Oct. 17.
“We will continue to license retailers at a steady pace in the days and months to follow,” said Dave Berry, AGLC vice-president of regulation.
Twelve stores are in the Edmonton area, three are in Medicine Hat and two in Calgary. The second Calgary location will be operated by Nova Cannabis in Willow Park Village.
The AGLC said it expects to sanction 250 stores in Alberta over the next year.
AGLC officials inspected Mooij’s site Sept. 24 and issued an interim licence soon after, allowing the store to accept product and begin selling it Oct. 17.
Mooij said he’s ordered $420,000 worth of marijuana and oils from as many as 15 licensed suppliers to stock the 4,000-square-foot store.
“That’s $1 million worth of retail … anything available we took,” he said.
“We won’t run out in the first week, but I hope we do.”
A company celebration to mark the occasion, which will include business associates, has already been planned at a nearby pizza restaurant, said Mooij.
But Four20 Premium Market, like its rivals, still faces plenty of regulatory headwinds before any more stores can open.
The company faces no fewer than six appeals of its city-approved Calgary locations, of which it ultimately hopes to have 10.
Nearly 100 appeals have been launched, challenging the city ’s approvals and refusals of the stores.
“We could have had two cleared for Oct. 17, with another one in the Foothills Industrial Park, but in- spectors couldn’t be there in time,” said Mooij.
That pace isn’t necessarily a bad thing in such uncharted waters, said Brad Rogers, president of Ontario-based CannTrust, one of 15 cannabis producers chosen by the province to supply the Alberta market.
“We should be looking for a nice, controlled way to have it roll out. It’s a measured end to prohibition,” said Rogers, whose company is gearing up to produce 100,000 kilograms of marijuana at its Niagara-area growing facility by late 2019 or early 2020.
But he said Alberta is a prized Canadian market for his company, second only to much-larger Ontario.
“The Alberta market is incredibly robust ... it’s a big, big centre for us on the medical side and I see the same for the recreational side,” said Rogers. “Cowboys like their weed.”
Over the next year, cannabis consumers will have a choice of 300 different variants of product that will be initially confined to dried bud, pre-rolled joints and orally consumable oils.
Rogers said it will take some time for logistical kinks to be worked out and the full variety of products made available to consumers.
“It’s an embryonic industry that’s going through growing pains,” he said.
The AGLC, which will operate online cannabis sales starting Oct. 17, will also be supplying private retailers from a top-secret warehouse in the Edmonton area.
Delivering the cannabis to those stores will be the contractor that performs the same task for Alberta’s private liquor merchants.
The Alberta market is incredibly robust ... it’s a big centre for us on the medical side and I see the same for the recreational side.