Ontario has given 42 applicants the opportunity to earn a retail cannabis licence following the province’s second cannabis-store lottery.
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), which regulates the cannabis sector, held the lottery on Tuesday and announced the results on Wednesday.
Two proposed London locations have been invited to apply for licences: one at 1135 Richmond St. near the Western University gates and the other at 1310 Fanshawe Park Rd. W. in the shopping plaza at Hyde Park.
If approved, the two proposed locations would become London’s fourth and fifth pot shops.
Central Cannabis was the first to open on Wonderland Road near Oxford Street West, followed by J. London in the city’s downtown core on Richmond Street and Tweed on Wellington Road in a plaza between Southdale Road and Bradley Avenue.
The commission says it received more than 4,800 “expressions of interest” in the lottery.
Unlike the first lottery, applicants in the latest draw had to show that they had secured retail space that could be used as a store if they were selected and that they had enough capital to open it.
The winners now have until Aug. 28 to complete an application to open a store, which will be vetted by the AGCO.
— With files the Canadian Press