Cannabis store to open in Guelph by summer

GUELPH – Fire and Flower Inc. hopes to open a cannabis retail store on Stone Road in Guelph sometime this summer.

It would be the company’s third retail outlet in Ontario and one of 47 it operates across the country.

Nathan Mison, vice president of government and stakeholder relations for Fire and Flower, said in a Feb. 13 interview the company is awaiting approvals from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).

Once that happens, it won’t take long to outfit and stock the store, he added.

“We know we can open a store in a certain amount of time after approvals. We hope to open by this summer,” Mison said.

He explained the company selected the Stone Road location because it had already been approved by the City of Guelph as a retail site under the previous Liberal government’s plan to operate government-run cannabis stores similar to LCBO outlets.

Doug Ford’s Conservatives scrapped that plan and are leaving it to private businesses to fill the void, with regulation and oversight from the AGCO.

Mison said the commission begins its store authorization process on March 2 but he doesn’t know how long that will take.

“We’ve requested the maximum number of stores, which right now is 10,” he said.

“Our goal is to work up to 15 per cent of the market share if we can. But this is the first time there will be an open allocation system and there are about 7,000 requests.”

The Guelph location has many pluses, Mison said, making it one of the company’s priority new retail sites in Ontario.

The City of Guelph had already approved the site – the former Dulux Paint store across from Stone Road Mall – and the period for public comment has already occurred, so that’s two requirements already met, he said.

Fire and Flower executives sit on the Ontario Cannabis Policy Committee along with representatives from the University of Guelph, “and we hope to build on conversations we’ve had with U of G,” Mison said.

“The university adds validity and research to our knowledge of cannabis, so this is a great partnership.”

David Weidrick, Guelph’s manager of bylaw compliance, security and licensing, was not available for an interview, but in a staff report to city council in December 2018 he recommended the city create a new bylaw to give compliance officers the ability to help police with enforcement.

Now that cannabis is legal in Canada, the restrictions fall around where it can be consumed and where it can be purchased.

A survey conducted by the city in the fall of 2018 indicates 65 per cent of residents are in favour of having a cannabis retail outlet in the city (but not near schools, day care centres, parks or addiction treatment centres) and 45% prefer retail stores to buying cannabis online.

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