Ontario Passes 350 Cannabis Stores
Province Sees Surge in Cannabis Stores after Opening the Market – LPC
Ontario recently passed 350 cannabis stores in the province. As of January 18, 2021, the province is officially home to 359 cannabis stores, according to the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO). That’s up from 24 stores in December 2019 – just over a year ago – when Premier Doug Ford decided to open up the Ontario retail cannabis market.
More than three times that number opened up in December 2020 alone. In that month, Ontario saw 83 new cannabis stores including 22 in the City of Toronto (not GTA).
Lisa Campbell, founder and CEO of cannabis sales and marketing company Mercari Agency, said that’s still not enough. Canada-wide oversupply means the more cannabis retailers that open up, the better.
“There’s a huge amount of lobbying on the industry front to increase the retail footprint, to increase access to address that oversupply issue,” Campbell said.
The numbers alone say there is still plenty of room to grow. There are currently 550 cannabis stores in Alberta, which has less than a third of the population of Ontario. Using those numbers, Ontario could surpass 1,900 cannabis stores in the province and still not be saturated.
Andrew Rhodes, co-owner of The Neighbourhood Joint in Toronto, believes that’s a good thing. And not just for the obvious reasons. A growing number of cannabis stores will also make it easier for consumers to leave the illegal cannabis market behind, he said.
“After COVID, we’ll have stores on pretty much every block,” Rhodes said. “I think that consumer confidence in the legal industry continues to grow.”
Click here to view full story at www.thestar.com
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