Parry Sound won’t be seeing a cannabis retail store any time soon.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario announced last week that the first 25 licences will only be going to municipalities that have a population over 50,000 as identified by the 2016 Canadian Census.
Mayor Jamie McGarvey is taking a wait-and-see approach to that new information. The population limit was part of the commission’s Expression of Interest Lottery Rules that outline eligibility for this coming Friday’s draw.
McGarvey told MyParrySoundNow.com that people can still purchase cannabis online and have the product delivered to the home.
“The important thing for municipalities right now is that they have to decide whether they’re going to opt in or out. Certainly opting in is going to give us some funding advantages from the province but we’ll deal with that at our next council meeting. Obviously, there won’t be a license available for our community but perhaps when production steps up, more licenses may come into play,” McGarvey said.
“I think everyone may have to be patient and allow this to work through the system. There is no point for a retailer to open a store and all of a sudden not have a product to sell. A potential retailer would have to spend a lot of money and have upfront capital and then justify whether they want to actually open and not have a product to sell would be difficult. These are some of the challenges that are going to be faced. Slow and easy is the likely the best method right now and we’ll have to work our way through it. Once production is stepped up, it may be more viable to have a store,” the mayor added.
The town has yet to officially opt-in to taking part in cannabis sales. That issue will be decided at the next council meeting on January 15th.
AGCO’s pot licence lottery rules can be found here.