The heavy regulations around the business owners of the cannabis industry

Recreational marijuana has only been legalized since October of 2018. This has opened new doors for not only consumers around the country, but for business owners as well.

But because cannabis is such a new industry, people who are looking to start their own dispensary must face heavy regulations before selling weed.

Snehal Biswas is a team leader at Tokyo Smoke along Wonderland, and he says that regulators keep track of almost everything that goes on in the business. “Every month we have to submit reports to them, all of our stock that we sell. Whatever inventory we have we send it to the AGCO,” says Biswas.

Who are the ACGO? The acronym stands for Alcohol and Gaming Commission in Ontario. They are the ones who regulate the weed industry.

“When the cannabis industry started, we didn’t have a separate governing body. It was the AGCO that was directed to govern us as a whole,” says Biswas.

Tokyo Smoke is a corporate owned dispensary. Bigger companies are naturally able to work and adjust well with all the regulations surrounding them. But that’s a different story for locally owned dispensaries.

Abraham Hajar is the co-owner of Cannabis Link located along Hyde Park. He says that it’s harder for him and his brothers to operate the business and even had trouble opening up shop.

“You have to first secure a location to be put in the lineup to even get considered for a license. We held leases for a year before we got the authorization to open,” says Hajar.

He also talks about how regulations are always changing and that it’s hard to keep up with that constant change.

“The AGCO has done a great job with regulating, but in the process of doing that there’s change. They are trying to make it more accessible and streamline it, however we incur costs in the process because it’s so new,” says Hajar.

Even though the cannabis industry is heavily regulated right now, it doesn’t mean that it will be forever.

“Everything takes time like even with the alcohol industry it was heavily regulated at one point,” says Biswas.