One of Ottawa’s first cannabis retail stores is set to open a second location on Clarence Street in the ByWard Market.
According to Hobo, the location was procured through a deal with one of the recent winners of the government of Ontario’s last retail cannabis licence lottery.
The new store will be multi-levelled and 5000 square feet, the company says. The storefront is set to be located at 121 Clarence St., not far from Fire and Flower, the first cannabis store in the ByWard Market.
According to Hobo’s VP of brand and culture Harrison Stoker, the first location in Centretown is the top-performing store in the province with over $8.3 million in net sales since April.
“We were in a unique and extremely fortunate position to launch one of Ottawa’s first retail cannabis stores back in April,” said Stoker in a release. “We’re thrilled to be returning to the nation’s capital once again to bring another store to market.”
Mayor Jim Watson says that while the fervour of the new cannabis stores in the city has died down, he has some concerns about the fact that this new store is so close to an already existing store.
“That’s one of the reasons why we wanted to have some say in where they’re going to go because we don’t want them going down the same path as the payday loan operators where there’s a couple in every block or so,” said Watson.
“My hope is that if they continue to have these lotteries that they at least have some understanding, as we don’t want to have three or four within a two-block radius of an important tourism destination like the ByWard Market.”
According to Stoker, the hope is to open the store within the next two months, pending processing of the licence application by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO).
“We’re confident that AGCO will move swiftly in processing applications as they did in the first round and, as such, have every intention of opening the store within 60 days,” said Stoker.
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