The Mayor of Salmon Arm says the legalization of cannabis has been an issue free endeavour for his city.
Alan Harrison says there have been six applications approved by city council, and two of those stores are now open.
He says the city has capped the number of stores downtown at four, and Harrison expects at least two other private cannabis stores to begin operations soon.
“We do have a government store that has a licence in Salmon Arm,” he said. “They plan on building a building to put their store in, so I suspect that the government store is probably a year out.”
Harrison believes that residents are on board with the plan to welcome retail cannabis stores to Salmon Arm, while ensuring that the stores aren’t all crowding the downtown.
“We have had other applicants who have applied for the downtown after that, and we have not approved those,” Harrison added. “We followed our policy. Outside of the downtown area, there is no cap, but at this time we have had only two applications, one in Canoe and the government store on the other side of town.”
One of the stores downtown – The Greenery Cannabis Boutique – opened earlier this month, as has Green Canoe Cannabis, which was the first store to get a provincial licence in Salmon Arm.