Thousands more pot shops needed to end illicit market: Fire & Flower CEO

The illicit market still controls roughly 70 to 80 per cent of all cannabis household spending in the country, according to Statistics Canada
BNN Bloomberg
Monday, July 6, 2020

canada ottawa cannabisCanada needs to open as many as 4,000 cannabis stores, more than triple the current number of licensed outlets, if policymakers want to eliminate the illicit market, according to the head of one of the largest marijuana retailers in the country. Trevor Fencott, chief executive officer of Fire and Flower Holdings Corp., said that Canada would need to mirror what other legal markets such as Colorado have done to compete directly with the illicit market, where one cannabis store would be open for every 10,000 people served. That would result in Canada needing to open about 3,500 to 4,000 cannabis stores. Canada has just shy of 1,000 licensed cannabis stores across the country less than two years after legalizing recreational pot.