Image Credit: Submitted / Fiore Fresco

By Ashley Legassic

PRIVATE CANNABIS STORE

14 months later, owners of Fiore Fresco are ready to get to work

Nov 15, 2019 | 3:01 PM

KAMLOOPS — A trio of local business owners now have the go-ahead to start work on their future cannabis store — more than one year after applying to operate.

Chris Monteleone is a co-owner of Fiore Fresco — along with Dino Bernardo and Justin Cuzzetto — which is set to open at the Fortune Shopping Centre on the North Shore.

Monteleone says he and his business partners received approval in principle last month from the provincial government. That means they can start renovations on the store — more than one year after initially applying.

“So approval in principle means you’re essentially past all the hoops and hurdles, you just have the ability to build your store now, follow your blueprints that you submitted, and then the final step would be a walk-through by the cannabis inspector,” Monteleone explains. “As soon as that gets approved, we can start ordering the cannabis, place it on our shelves, add SKUs to everything, get our computer system going, staff fully trained, and then we can open our doors.”

Monteleone and his partners are excited to finally be able to open Fiore Fresco’s doors, and they believe the provincial approval process could have been better laid out for business owners.

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“We feel that things could have been laid out a little bit differently. It’s a frustrating experience as we were forced to pay rent for 14 months without the ability to create an income from that rental property. Maybe the approval process could have been subjected, at the very end, to finding a proper location, so we feel maybe that was backwards,” Monteleone says. “But nonetheless, we’re approved now and we’re staying positive about things and excited to open.”

Opening day is still likely a couple of months away, but Monteleone is excited about the prospect to be able to open Fiore’s doors with edibles on the shelf.

“One positive to take from the long wait period is that we will be opening with edibles on our shelves, along with vape products and a full array of cannabis products that are going to be available in the Canadian market,” he says. “The cannabis industry’s only getting better, especially while the government does work out some of these kinks. But we’re able to kind of offer everything that’s going to be available… So we’re going to run our business much like we do down at The Commodore and up at Fuel Supplements. We’re hands-on owners, we’re going to be very present, and it’s going to be exciting welcoming people through our doors and showing people what we have to offer.”

Monteleone says he and his co-owners expect to begin the hiring process in the coming weeks.

“I’m excited to work alongside all the other private cannabis shops in town, I’ve been staying in close contact with most of them and I’m excited to work alongside with them and be on the same team and same page.”