Stores ready for sales as cannabis prohibition ends
Outlets focus on customer service, last-minute details for launch
The first two stores in Calgary cleared to sell recreational cannabis were busy Tuesday attending to last-minute details, as pot became legal across Canada today.
At Nova Cannabis Willow Park, staff members were getting a tutorial on customer service amid kiosks trumpeting the merits of Mango Haze and Shark Attack bud.
“We’ll have more than 70 types of bud,” said Shelley Girard, vicepresident of strategy development. “It’ll certainly be an extraordinary day for Canada; that energy will be coming through.”
The store’s sleek space in Willow Park Village was abuzz with preparations, including positioning of price tags and information posts.
Like other cannabis outlets, Nova Cannabis provides clear plastic sensory pods that allow customers to sniff the dried flower of the plant and view it through magnifying glasses. But, there’s no touching of the product until after a purchase.
Product cards with a regime of symbols detailing the producer, aroma, flavour and intoxicating properties of various strains of bud abound in a commercial ecosphere that’s big on interactive shopping.
“We have iPads to self-navigate the THC and CBD levels,” said Girard, referring respectively to the psychoactive and medicinal elements in cannabis.
Just up Macleod Trail at Southland Crossing, workers were putting the finishing touches on the only other pot shop that will open Wednesday in Calgary — Four20 Premium Market.
“We’re just putting in the wall at the front here for the ID check,” said Ryan Kaye, Four20’s vicepresident of operations.
He said the store will be ready to open at 10 a.m. and he fully expects an overnight lineup.
Parking spots in the strip mall have been temporarily reserved for the occasion, added Kaye.
“It’s the end of a lifetime of prohibition,” he said.
A battery of large screens will provide a digital menu of products ranging from dried flower and pre-rolled joints to edible oils and seeds.
Smoking accessories including pipes, bongs and vaporizers will visually break up a more monotonous expanse of weed bags, said Kaye.
Some of the marijuana canisters on sale will have a child-proof padlock capability, while other products — such as a bottle of edible oil sealed by a federal excise sticker — remain a mystery even to retailers who’ve been gearing up for months, said Kaye.
“I can’t even tell you if there’s a syringe in that bottle because we haven’t seen it,” he said.
Operators of both stores were coy about pricing, not wanting to tip their competitive hands.
But Kaye said $10 for a gram of bud “will be closer to the bottom end. There’s no doubt it’ll be cheaper to go to the illegal market.”
For now, supply is tight and the rise of legal weed will be a gradual one, he said.
“It’s starting slow, starting with a smaller package size,” he said, as a city inspector arrived to make a quick final check at the store.
But that’ll change and prices will drop, said Kaye, as more supply comes on line next year.
Legal retailers, he said, are promoting the certainty of product quality, retail experience and predictable convenience.
And Four20, he said, isn’t turning its back on medical cannabis users, who’ll find CBD products on their shelves. By law, however, staff members are forbidden to offer medicinal advice.
“It’s actually a very important step for the medical cannabis community — over half of our products are using CBD strains,” said Kaye.
City officials say the two stores opening Wednesday will soon have more company in the coming weeks, with nine more locations meeting city regulations already awaiting final licensing from Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis.
A total of 17 locations will open throughout the province Wednesday, a dozen of them in the Edmonton area alone.
Legislation will ensure all stores have blacked-out windows to prevent youngsters from seeing the offerings inside.
Kaye said it’s a curious law, in comparison to the laws that govern liquor stores which he believes sell a far more dangerous product.
“Kids can actually go into liquor stores with their parents,” he said, noting such a visit is banned in cannabis shops.
The federal Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it legalized recreational marijuana to undermine the criminal trade of the already widely-consumed drug, to increase safety and to reduce its use by youth.
Important step for the medical cannabis community — over half of our products are using CBD strains.