Local sellers of cannabis-related accessories are expressing gratitude over the Ontario government’s announced scrapping of the lottery system, which to date has meant no local retail sales of legal recreational marijuana.

The rule change, announced Friday and going into effect Jan. 1, will open up the retail market to allow anyone to apply to government regulators for a license.

“Now we have to get into gear,” said Jake Kenney, 27, who owns and operates Hempstarz on the city’s west end with his girlfriend Emily Boyle. “It’s only a couple weeks away.

“They are saying up to 10 or 20 stores within the first couple months for every municipality that opted in to sell cannabis and maybe up to 70 stores per year. There is going to be rush for sure (to start), but I don’t know how many (retailers) will be ready.”

Would-be retailers will still be subjected to criminal record checks and a government approval process, but the pre-qualification measures used with the lottery system are being abolished.

I’m trying to get my foot in the door. I had the idea to do this for a couple of years and now they announced they are opening up retail.

The new rules will also allow legal cannabis producers to enter the retail market by opening shops on their premises.

Kenney has been patiently waiting for his shot at a retail license to sell marijuana since he decided to quit his job at the Windsor Assembly Plant soon after it was announced the third shift was in jeopardy of being eliminated.

“I would have been one of the … people looking for a job,” he said Saturday. “I took all my savings and put it into this store.

“I’m trying to get my foot in the door. I had the idea to do this for a couple of years and now they announced they are opening up retail.”

Kenney opened Hempstarz, located in the 3200 block of Sandwich Street, at the beginning of August.

“We just want to be in the cannabis industry, so we opened this store to sell accessories and glass (vaporizers),” he said. “We got ahead right from the first month, but it’s lot of hard work, a lot of hours.

“People come in here every day and ask ‘Can we buy cannabis,’ or ‘Where can we get some,’ but we can’t sell the weed. People want to come to the stores.”

Hempstarz Cannabis Co. co-owner Jake Kenney is pictured at the new business located on Sandwich Street Saturday. Kenney has about $10,000 in merchandise for shoppers, both online and in store. 

A supply shortfall and the lottery system kept the government well shy of its stated goal of having as many as a thousand cannabis retailers throughout the province. The first lottery saw just 25 licences issued province-wide, with a further 50 awarded in a second round. Windsor missed getting a retailer in the first round. In the second round, a lottery winner announced he’d locate in the 500 block of Ouellette Avenue, but the application for Rose City Cannabis has not yet been approved.

Critics have described the system as excessively slow, arguing the lack of private retail options has prevented the province from making inroads on the illegal weed market.

A customer at Hempstarz, John Uwuayesanthie, believes following Friday’s announcement it’s only a matter of time before the black market gets overtaken by legal retail sales, despite the fact the black market currently has the upper hand.

Hempstarz Cannabis Co. visitor John Uwuayesanthie checks out the new business located on Sandwich Street Saturday.

“You have a lot of people who don’t want to go that route because you don’t know what you are buying,” he said.

“I love the energy they are putting into the business here,” he said of Hempstarz. “You need someone who will be regularly inspected and selling something that is tested and approved.

“It’s important because you have people generating some of these drugs that are actually killing people. Now, you will be able to come here and know what you are getting is clean. I think the underground business will eventually vanish.”