The City of Vancouver has now handed out three business licenses to retail cannabis stores.
It comes after provincial regulators approved the first provincial license to the Evergreen Cannabis Society at 2868 West 4th Ave. last week.
Two more provincial licenses, for a pair of City Cannabis Co. locations — one at 610 Robson St. and one at 7289 Fraser St. — were issued this week.
Evergreen — which had hoped to open last weekend — now plans to open to the public on Saturday.
But on Friday night, it was scooped by City Cannabis Co.’s Fraser Street location in the hunt to make the first ever legal recreational pot sale in the city, with a soft launch.
“It took about four years to get to this point and seeing that first purchase kind of just made it all worth it, so we’re looking forward to many more purchases hopefully,” said CEO Krystian Wetulani.
“Hard work, trying to do everything by the book, trying to self regulate, trying to come up with a concept that people will like, a nice safe environment that people will like that’s got tons of high quality products that people are going to want.”
WATCH: Vancouver’s first legal pot store gets set to open its doors
City of Vancouver business licenses are the final hurdle pot shops must clear in order to operate legally in the city.
There are now six provincially licensed private retail cannabis stores. Two others in the interior-north region have been approved with conditions.
According to provincial statistics, 102 would-be pot shops in the Greater Vancouver region have paid their application fees, 52 of which have been referred to local municipalities for their sign-off.
There remain an estimated 40 pot shops in Vancouver who don’t have a license and aren’t in the licensing process.
Back in December, the City of Vancouver won a B.C. Supreme Court ruling allowing it to crack down on unlicensed pot shops that had been flouting an injunction based on the city’s own home-grown licensing regime established in 2016.