In an attempt to mitigate the supply challenges that has been experienced since the legalization of cannabis last year, the Ontario government is only issuing a total of 25 retail licences to start.
The province asked the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario to hold a lottery to determine who may apply for retail operator licences.
After having only two days to submit an Expression of Interest, the results have now been released.
Only two retail stores have been allotted in northern Ontario, but the locations have not yet been chosen. The applicants were to only decide which region(s) they would like to apply for.
Over 8,500 people applied for a chance in the region.
The winners for the North Region are and include their iAGCO file number:
-
Anton Lucic 428024
Saturninus Partners 423124
Twenty applicants from each region were selected for the waitlist in the event a selected winner is disqualified, withdraws, or has their licence revoked or refused by the Registrar.
The northern region waitlist is:
- Arielle Grinberg 397964
- Christopher Douglas Emmons 421016
- Blanchart Arunasalam 416172
- RuzHal Canna Corp. 415415
- Christina Kelly 418879
- Eden Ifergan 427410
- 2600207 Ontario Inc. 420297
- Jayde McElroy 424348
- Justin Femia 412039
- Com3xprt Inc 420369
- Makwa Resourcing Inc. 421295
- NEWMAN ROSENBERG INC. 421442
- Lena Triebe 408949
- 11183362 CANADA INC 412344
- Kuljeet Kaur Kang 429133
- Scott Sheehey 409050
- Manan Shah 408473
- Alexander Shorser 430101
- Sabrina Brown 426854
- Ishrat Muhammad 405423
Regions have been allotted a number of licences based on their population:
- East – 5
- GTA – 6
- Toronto – 5
- West – 7
A total of 17,320 paid $75 to submit an EOI within the province, of which 415 were disqualified. Applicants were able to identify up to five regions of interest, but could only obtain one if selected, bringing the total number of regional entries in the lottery to just over 59,000.
Most EOIs were submitted by sole proprietorships, making up 64% of the applicants, corporations made up 33%, followed by partnerships and limited partnerships.
The winners in each region will receive an official letter of notification outlining the next steps, including how to submit a Retail Operator Licence application to the AGCO.
Each applicant will be required to submit a $50,000 Standby Letter of Credit, that can be drawn upon in increments to pay fines for not having their retail operation open by the April 1st deadline, and make a non-refundable $6,000 fee payment by next Friday, January 18th at 5 pm.
The provincial government has said if the feds can address the supply issues, they will consider allowing more licences in the province.
CTV News Northern Ontario will be following this developing story and will bring the information on the locations of the new retail stores once they are available.
