A week after legalization, local pot stores aren’t hurting for business.
Delta 9 Cannabis, one of four companies licensed to sell recreational pot in Manitoba, announced local sales of $736,124 in the seven days since marijuana became legal, accounting for close to 9,600 customer transactions.
“The first day of legal recreational cannabis sales blew away all of our expectations,” said John Arbuthnot, Delta 9’s CEO.
“We launched online sales of cannabis just after the stroke of midnight on Oct. 17, and in the first minute, logged more than 100 sales to customers in Manitoba.
“By 4 a.m., we had sold out all the product set aside for online sales, but even that was nothing compared to the experience at our first retail store in Winnipeg.”
Arbuthnot said the turnout on legalization day at the company’s St. Vital ‘superstore’ exceeded their high expectations. Hundreds of people lined up before the store opened, with some waiting up to two hours for a chance to buy their first gram of legal pot.
“We handled close to 2,000 sales by late afternoon, and even bigger crowds began arriving in the evening as people started arriving after work,” said Arbuthnot.
“We were starting to worry that everything in the vault would be cleared out by end of day.”
Although there have been reports of pot shortages across the problem, Delta 9 says it continues to have a ‘robust supply’ of cannabis from its own Winnipeg production facility. The vast majority of its sales so far have been of dried cannabis products.
In other local pot news, Delta 9 competitor Tokyo Smoke announced Wednesday that its flagship store on Stradbrook Avenue is now open.
WATCH: Delta 9 line up in Winnipeg