London cannabis stores say they won't join trend to cut hours

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But London’s three bricks-and-mortar marijuana stores — all of them open seven days a week — say they have ample supply and don’t plan to decrease operating hours.

The Hobo Recreational Cannabis Store in Ottawa and Canna Cabana in Hamilton are cutting back their hours — closing one day of the week and reducing hours on others — in response to lack of supply.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if the other stores started doing the same thing,” said Michael Armstrong, a professor at Brock University’s Goodman School of Business who studies Canada’s cannabis industry.

Ontario’s 21 cannabis stores — four of the initial 25 still haven’t opened — were allowed to pre-order 100 kilograms of cannabis products prior to opening, with each outlet now allowed to buy 25 kilograms per week.

“Every week that goes by, if they’re selling more than 25 kilograms a week, then that initial stock that kind of gave them a head start will deplete,” Armstrong said.

Pot sells for $10 to $15 per gram at most legal stores.

A spokesperson for J. London on Richmond Street says the store hasn’t had any problems with the limit imposed by the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS), the province’s pot wholesaler.

“We’re obviously not ordering everything every week,” David Craig said of the many products the downtown store stocks.

“We’re ordering the things that are selling more quickly than others . . . We’re staying consistent.”

A spokesperson for Central Cannabis on Wonderland Road says the store isn’t making the maximum weekly order.

“We want to make sure we sell out of the current inventory that we have,” Omar Campos said, adding he expects the 25-kilogram limit will be a problem when cannabis-infused edibles are introduced to the market in the fall.

London’s newest pot shop, Tweed on Wellington Road South, doesn’t foresee any supply problems, said a spokesperson for Canopy, the cannabis company that struck a licensing agreement with the Ontario numbered company that owns the south-end operation.

“They’ve been forecasting and planning for their entry into the Ontario cannabis space for a long time,” Shega Youngson, Canopy’s community engagement manager, said of the owner.

Canada has been plagued by a country-wide cannabis supply shortage since legalizing recreational pot on Oct. 17.

In response, Quebec’s government-run Société québécoise du cannabis stores cut back store hours to five days a week in the fall before returning to seven-day service last month.

With more than a 150 licensed pot producers now operating, many of them expanding rapidly to meet the supply demand, Armstrong and some industry insiders have predicted there will be enough cannabis to meet demand by the end of this year.

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