Province rejects Macl group bid to open cannabis dispensaries

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This article was published 13/02/2018 (2954 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

After receiving his rejection letters from the provincial government, Growers ’n Smokers owner Rick Macl said he had his best night’s sleep in a while.

These letters, sent to business partners of his, noted that their joint applications to open up to a dozen cannabis dispensaries in Manitoba had been rejected, which Macl said might just be a blessing in disguise.

While selling cannabis is something he had been working toward for the past year, Macl said the more he thought about it, the more he has come to appreciate what he already has.

“I have a huge following, a huge community behind me. It’s really crazy,” he said, adding that the little head shop he opened a year ago has “evolved into something so much better.”

The other local entrepreneur to apply for one of four dispensary licences being divvied out during this first round is Robert Ritchot of B.O.B. Headquarters, who did not respond to a message by press time on Monday.

B.O.B. Headquarters partnered with Tokyo Smoke, 4Front Advisors, Leo’s Group and Green Acre Capital in applying to open cannabis dispensaries in Manitoba.

Macl opened Growers ’n Smokers, at 223 18th St. N., on March 17 of last year.

Since that time, he has expanded into the storefront that neighboured his initial strip mall space, to accommodate the display and sale of hydroponic grow equipment.

He has also helped hundreds of people obtain medical cannabis prescriptions by linking them with medical professionals willing to sign off on it, which he said is not always an easy task given the stigma of using cannabis.

Education has also been a centrepiece to his work, with Macl helping people navigate the differences between different strains’ concentration of THC, CBD and terpenes and their corresponding effects on the body.

From the beginning, his end game has been opening up a cannabis dispensary in the space.

Now that the government has said “no,” he’ll have to reexamine his goals.

With a fast-approaching legalization date for recreational cannabis of sometime this summer and the province’s continued uncertainty on many fronts as it relates to the rollout of legalization in Manitoba, Macl predicts “chaos.”

“I couldn’t even imagine what headaches there are going to be, because it’s all over the place,” he said.

Further to that, he said he foresees the government’s instating razor-thin profit margins, which points to a marketplace that’s more devoted to bulk sales than it is the quality of these sales.

“At the end of the day, there was never a lot of money in the dispensary,” Macl said, adding that it would nonetheless have been a nice thing to add to the packages he’s able to offer customers.

Macl said as soon as the winning bids are announced, he plans on connecting with the winning candidates to see whether he might be able to partner with them in some capacity.

He said that he now sees his role in the future of legalized recreational cannabis coming in the form of education and pointing people toward its medicinal benefits rather than certain strains’ ability to make people feel “stoned.”

“Money isn’t everything,” Macl said, adding that although his business has been financially successful in its first year his greatest reward has come from people visiting him after getting their prescriptions to let him know how cannabis has allowed them to get off prescription pills and improve their lives in various capacities.

“You can’t even put a dollar figure on that,” he said, adding after a pause, “You can’t.”

At latest update, the provincial government planned on letting the more than 100 business entities that applied for cannabis dispensary licences learn the status of their applications by some time this month.

» tclarke@brandonsun.com

» Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB