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In the popular summertime tourist town of Grand Bend, Ontario, Laura Bradley is doing something few other entrepreneurs in Canada are doing – running a cannabis café.
Patrons of the outdoor Behind the Bend Café and Lounge can use a tablet to make a selection from a variety of cannabis products, and then their order is brought to their table from the adjacent retail cannabis store.
While the café doesn’t currently offer food, it does have a range of activities for guests to enjoy while they consume their cannabis products – from video games and board games to movie nights.
“My store is essentially attached to the café, so they can purchase drinks, they can purchase pre-rolls, chocolate, cookies – whatever I’m selling in the store – and they can go into the back and consume it,” Bradley said.
Workarounds while waiting for new rules
However, running the café means that Bradley has to navigate a series of rules and restrictions that make it hard to legally run a cannabis consumption business in Canada’s largest province and successfully monetise it.
“They need to write a law for consumption lounges,” Bradley said. “It doesn’t exist right now. It’s not about changing existing rules – it’s about creating new ones for us.”
Advocates point to the potential of cannabis consumption spaces to develop industries such as cannabis tourism. In the meantime, businesspeople like Bradley have been finding ways around existing rules to operate legally.
For example, in Toronto, Lit Research has obtained Health Canada authorisation to run a research testing location where participants can register to consume cannabis onsite for “sensory testing purposes”.
Canada’s federal government legalised cannabis in 2018 and governs several aspects of how it can be legally sold in the country. But when it comes to rules for businesses like cannabis consumption lounges, entrepreneurs face a complicated patchwork quilt of provincial and municipal laws.
Provinces could play follow the leader
George Smitherman, president of the Cannabis Council of Canada, expects the number of cannabis consumption spaces in the country to grow in coming years.
“We have a national law, but the consumption environments are going to emerge province by province by province,” said Smitherman. “I think that in the Canadian experience it’s frequently the case that in government everybody loves a precedent, and so I think our model here in Canada will be one province will lead and others will follow.”
One of the hurdles for those who want to open cannabis consumption locations are anti-smoking laws like the Smoke Free Ontario Act, which Smitherman himself had Ontario’s provincial legislature adopt when he was the province’s health minister. While there is a market for edibles and cannabis-infused drinks, an estimated 70% of Canada’s cannabis sales are dry flower, he said.
“I think a lot of people who would look to create consumption environments have been inclined towards trying to accommodate inhaled products,” Smitherman said. “That could be very tricky. I think that’s a serious barrier to being able to create these environments.
“But I really think it’s going to emerge quite significantly here in Canada in the next two to three years.”
Plans in British Columbia, while Alberta is more tentative
British Columbia does not currently allow commercially operated cannabis lounges but has begun to look at the possibility, and last year ran a province-wide consultation.
Alisha Evans, public affairs officer for the British Columbia Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, said the province is starting to work on allowing for “cannabis-related hospitality and tourism opportunities”.
Evans outlined the first steps in the plan which involve reviewing British Columbia’s rules on promotion and looking “at potential for authorised cannabis sales at special events”. She added that a key priority will be to allow licensed cannabis businesses in the province to “benefit from the expanded business opportunities that will result from the evolving regulated framework”.
Meanwhile, the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) has not ruled out the possibility of a future change.
Communications manager Karin Campbell told CannIntelligence that these spaces are currently not part of the province’s legislative and regulatory framework. “Any change to allow cannabis consumption businesses would require amendments by the Alberta government to the Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Act and Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Regulation.”
She added that no policy decision has been made to date but said that the AGLC “continues to work with government on opportunities in the cannabis industry”.
‘No changes’ for Ontario, ‘forbidden’ in Quebec
Back in Ontario, the Chamber of Commerce has told the government that in the future people will want to consume cannabis in social spaces, the way they currently consume alcohol. The Ontario government, however, has not accepted that viewpoint.
Maher Abdurahman, spokesman for the Ministry of the Attorney General, said: “Ontario has taken a responsible approach to opening cannabis stores across the province, allowing private-sector businesses to build a safe and convenient retail system.
“No changes to the cannabis framework are expected at this time.”
In Quebec, the rules do not allow cannabis consumption lounges, said health department spokesperson Noémie Vanheuverzwijn.
“It is forbidden to smoke or vape cannabis in every place that welcomes the public, indoors as well as outdoors, including public roads,” she said. “Therefore, cannabis lounges are not allowed in Quebec.”
– Elizabeth Thompson CannIntelligence contributing writer
Photo: BB and HH, Flickr
