Image Credit: CFJC Today
BC CANNABIS

Second BC Cannabis Store opens in Kamloops; 14 private retailers await provincial approval

Jul 10, 2019 | 8:18 AM

KAMLOOPS — The second BC Cannabis Store in Kamloops quietly opened its doors today.

Located at the Northills Mall on Kamloops’s North Shore, the store will run the same days and hours as the Columbia Place store on Summit Drive, which opened on legalization day last October.

City of Kamloops business licence inspector and property use coordinator Dave Jones says the government applied for those two locations, along with another BC Cannabis Store slated for Lansdowne Street, together before any private store applications went in front of council.

“The private stores and their ownership will have to go through the fit and proper for their licences,” he says. “Obviously the government has a little bit of a heads up on that because obviously they’re going to give themselves a licence so then they’re not going through that step.”

Jones says he’s heard from the province that the fit and proper checks for private retailers across the province, including in Kamloops, are ongoing — although it’s taking longer than expected.

So far only one private cannabis store has opened in the City of Kamloops — The Shore Cannabiz Shop. Pinnacle Access has also opened on Tk’emlups te Secwepemc reserve land.

Including The Shore, 15 private retailers have received city council’s approval since legalization.