Supply snags mean SQDC outlets will open Thursday-Sunday only

After only nine days of operations, the Société québécoise du cannabis announced on Friday that a lack of supply has forced it to reduce the operating hours of its 12 sales outlets to four days a week.

Beginning Monday and until further notice, the dozen SQDC stores in Quebec will be closed Monday to Wednesday and open during scheduled operating hours from Thursday to Sunday. The decision to reduce the operating schedule came after supply problems — present from the day the stores opened on Oct. 17 — grew increasingly worse.

As of Friday morning, more than 50 of the 68 products listed for sale on the SQDC’s website were out of stock. The agency hopes the new schedule will allow outlets to “stabilize” their inventories. The SQDC said its online store will remain open, with an average of about 30 products available. Delivery will take about two to five days.

The SQDC said cannabis producers have a “colossal” job ahead of them to fill the orders it has placed.

“We’re dealing with massive pent-up demand,” said Allan Rewak, the executive director of the Cannabis Council of Canada, an industry association. “We’ve had prohibition for 90 years and when you open the tap, so to speak, there’s going to be an initial flood of enthusiasm that is in excess of normal enthusiasm.”

Intermittent supply issues could continue for the first year, but they are a symptom of the industry’s success, he said. Limiting store hours and supply problems have raised the ire of one of the unions that has applied to represent the SQDC workers. The FTQ -affiliated Syndicat canadien de la fonction publique (SCFP) has accused the SQDC of “mismanagement” and said it fears for the security of jobs, leaving the new workers in a precarious situation. In a statement issued Friday, the SQDC said no layoffs would occur because of the schedule change and that employees would also be working on days when the stores were closed in order to process deliveries. Postmedia News

Presse Canadienne and Jacob Serebrin of the Montreal Gazette contributed to this report.