Calgary leads the country in cannabis retail as city grapples with costs
MEGHAN POTKINS, CALGARY HERALD Updated: March 21, 2019
Calgary is leading the country in cannabis retail with 24 licensed pot shops — more than twice as many outlets as the next highest jurisdiction — despite the province’s decision last fall to stop issuing further store licences.
“We’ve had remarkably little problem with the retailers here,” Mayor Naheed Nenshi said Thursday. “We have 24 private retail outlets in Calgary, which is by far the largest in the country.”
The mayor said that despite the city’s free-market approach to regulation, the province’s decision last November to halt licensing due to a shortage of cannabis supply has left some Calgary entrepreneurs in limbo.
The city has now approved development permits for 167 stores in Calgary, more than a dozen of which are stuck waiting for the province to lift a moratorium on new licenses.
“I’ve said from the very beginning, there is no way the Calgary market can support that number of stores,” Nenshi said. “(But) it’s sort of a shame that instead of letting the market sort it out, the first 24 who got in kind of won the lottery because there was then a moratorium on other stores.
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