Roughly 800 people bought pot on opening day of Kamloops’ cannabis store

People began lining up outside of the store at around 6:00 a.m. yesterday (Oct. 17), the first day of cannabis legalization in the country. When the store first opened, more than 100 people were in line waiting to get their hands on some legal marijuana.

But because there’s only one store open in the province at this time, online purchases are what truly took off. Zanocco says about 9,100 customers placed orders through the online store within the first 24 hours. Some products did end up running out, specifically single-gram dried flower items, which Zanocco says the LDB knew would be the most popular. But overnight, the online store was stocked and replenished, as they will do every night as needed.

“Here at the store, a different matter,” says Zanocco. “We haven’t really run out of anything, there’s a couple of strains — maybe three — that are not available but that’s pretty good compared to some of the other provinces. We’ve seen whole stores just shut down for days. We’re in good shape.”

Zanocco adds it’s important to note that it was a busy couple of months for the branch, which essentially had to add a new business to its existing liquor business. It wasn’t just a matter of leasing a store and putting in product; tasks like social responsibility messaging, banking systems and business systems had to be learned and implemented ahead of time.

“That was monumental. In terms of going off without a hitch, I think it did,” says Zanocco. “The only glitches that really we had was it was everybody’s first day of work… There was no way to prepare more than we did.”

Zanocco says to her knowledge, she’s not sure there was anyone who came into the store that didn’t leave with something, even if it was just more knowledge about products.

by Ashley Legassic

Roughly 800 people bought pot on opening day of Kamloops’ cannabis store

Our Community