On Day 1 of the Canada-wide legalization of recreational marijuana, customers couldn’t buy their bud from the Bud Barn Society.
The store, located on Nicol Street, opted not to test local and federal authorities and had cleared its inventories of recreational and marijuana products and shuttered its store front Wednesday.
Matt Charlton, owner of the Bud Barn Society cannabis dispensary, said he had hoped the Canadian and provincial governments would have had licensing approval processes in place for selling recreational and medical marijuana, but his company will bide its time until those licensing and zoning approvals are in place.
“As of right now, because we have been notified by the province and the city, we’re not taking any risks because we’ve been pretty much guaranteed a licence at this point,” Charlton said.
Cannabis products retailers that openly sold cannabis products for more than a year without regulation and little interference from the province or municipalities, now risk consequences that can range from having licence applications rejected to possible heavy fines and incarceration for selling recreational or medicinal cannabis products, under regulations that arrived with national legalization.
“[Today] we’re going to be closed down and we’re going to be clearing and then, hopefully, on the 18th, if not a bit later, then we will be opening back up just for selling paraphernalia,” said Brad Laczkowski, supervisor at the Mid Island Wellness Association, located near Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.
Laczkowski said he expected a number of marijuana dispensaries to close, at least until stores meet zoning requirements and licences are approved. As of Wednesday only one store in Kamloops was licensed to legally sell recreational marijuana in-store and online, although the possibility of receiving the product via Canada Post was thrown into doubt when the Canadian Union of Postal Workers issued strike notice Wednesday.
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Nanaimo pot shops taking different approaches to legalization day. Day 1 of marijuana legalization sees unlicensed pot shops close, stay open… https://t.co/poK1a3xLrx #Nanaimo pic.twitter.com/mv0wGtydyS
— Nanaimo Bulletin (@NanaimoBulletin) October 18, 2018
Trees - Island Grown, located on Bowen Road, will stay open, said Alex Robb, general manager and director of the Victoria-based company.
“It’s going to be a strange legalization here in B.C.,” Robb said. “There are good reasons for that. The timing of this has been thrown off by a few different things. One is the initial provincial election and the confusion that followed that, in that regulations couldn’t be put into place and application processes could not be put into place and as a result most municipalities are not ready.”
Delays causes by the provincial election in turn delayed municipalities from developing zoning and other bylaws governing cannabis retail outlets. The timing of municipal elections has in some cases caused further delays.
“When we do finish the election campaign on Saturday and the mayors and councillors are sworn in, they’ll be informed by staff on what the current situation relating to retail cannabis is in their jurisdictions and then they’ll have to move forward with either approval of different applicants or creating the guidelines,” Robb said.
Nanaimo has guidelines in place.
Robb said Trees - Island Grown will submit its applications for its two Nanaimo locations when the city starts receiving them Monday, Oct. 22.
In the meantime, Trees stores will stay open unless there is pushback from the province for them to cease operations until they are licensed. Robb said Trees - Island Grown is under the impression it would not be penalized before the province inspects its premises and then Trees, having eliminated its existing stock prior to inspection, could, upon becoming licensed, switch over to buying its cannabis through the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch. If, however, he gets direct comment from the province that remaining open would jeopardize the company’s application, then he would close the stores until a licence was approved.
Robb said he anticipates, based on comments made by Mike Farnworth, minister of public safety and B.C. solicitor general Monday, enforcement will ramp up as more licensed stores come online and it is not Trees’ intention to be in competition with legal stores, but to support the legal cannabis market.
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