Swarms of cheerful Ottawa residents lined up outside three new pot shops as doors to the city’s first legal stores opened on April 1, nearly six months after legalization.
Pot shops in the ByWard Market, Centretown, and Wellington West Village were among only 10 out of 25 stores in Ontario ready to go on the province-wide opening date.
All three pot stores in Ottawa asked customers to present two pieces of government-issued ID instead of only one on Monday.
Sierra McCormick, a staff member at Fire & Flower in the ByWard Market, said her pot shop will only implement this policy for the first week of opening.
“We just want to make sure no one underage walks in because we expect to have so many young people coming in, especially for the first week,” she said.
But, McCormick said she was surprised to see a lack of students from the University of Ottawa (U of O) at the store for its opening. Fire & Flower is located a 10-minute walk away from U of O.
“I mean, I’ve seen people ranged from like ages of 19 to 90 come in,” she said, “but, it’s crazy I didn’t see too many uOttawa students coming in.”
Hannah More, first-year marketing student at U of O, didn’t visit any of the new stores on Monday. She said she’s not surprised at the lack of students from her university.
“To be honest, it’s because there’s so many cheaper and better options available,” she said. “Like everyone I know has their own plug (dealer) they can get cheaper stuff from, and I don’t see that changing any time soon.”
Third-year exchange student Cassandra McCormick from U of O said she agreed with More.
“I hate the smell myself, and I don’t know people from my friend group in Canada that smoke, but I know people that do have other ways to find it than stores in the city,” she said. “Their smoking habits won’t be changing just because a store opened close to them.”
But, Navdeep Dhillon, a second-year neuroscience and biology student at Carleton University, said she thinks students who consume cannabis will definitely be drawn to the legal pot shops in the long term.
“I remember when weed was legalized, and the dispensaries and stuff closed, so my friends who smoked didn’t know where to get it from, so the new stores will definitely appeal to them,” Dhillon said. “And I think the idea that the stores are approved by the government is even more appealing because it’ll be safer, and there’s like now doubt that it’s like laced or anything.”
For my reporting class today, I’m challenging myself to visit all three #ottcity pot shops that opened this morning.
Here’s my first stop: Superette, on 1306 Wellington St. W where a packed crowd is lined up to buy their first ounce of store-owned weed. #ottnews #OnPoli #ONWeed pic.twitter.com/fjTu12sSGh
— Temur Durrani (@temurdur) April 1, 2019
One Ottawa resident was particularly excited on opening day for the stores.
Catherine Forsyth, a resident from Hintonburg, lined up with two dozen other excited customers outside Superette on Wellington St. West.
She said she was “surprised it took Ottawa this damn long” to open legal stores.
“I’m 65 years old, and I’m just ecstatic I finally don’t have to wait longer to be able to buy some legal weed,” Forsyth said. “I never thought this day would come in my lifetime.”
Forsyth said she’s tried to buy cannabis online through the Ontario Cannabis Store, but said the wait times were far too long for her.
“It’s also such an invasion of privacy,” she added. “I’m just trying to get legal weed, like I don’t want to be giving away my information like that.”
Hobo Recreational Cannabis Store, located a short bus ride away from Carleton in Centretown, saw the shortest wait lines on Monday.
A staff member, who requested anonymity due to a store policy, said she thinks shorter lines outside Hobo were due to their “rigorous training before opening.”
“We had at least 40-50 hours of training, and so we’re trained enough to make sure our staff can understand the needs of customer and give them quick and fast service,” she said.
Mussa Yussuf, a first-year history student at Carleton, said he’s not sure if he thinks students in his year will be purchasing cannabis from Hobo or any other stores in Ottawa.
“I definitely think it’s a generational thing, like you’ll probably see more older people going to these stores—even people who probably didn’t smoke before—because it’s a lifestyle thing for them to go to physical stores to buy things,” he said.
“People who already have a plug won’t just abandon them for stores because, you know, they trust them with their weed being better and maybe cheaper.”
Ottawa now has more stores ready for business than any other city in the province, including large cities such as Toronto, Brampton, and London.
Photos by Temur Durrani
