I don't think that trafficking hundreds of pound obtained in the black/grey markets across provincial boarders...The transportation over provincial Boarders and organizing a network of distributing across a country.
Do you know for a fact that the Ontario outlets didn't stock Ontario-grown cannabis, or is this a repeated assumption on your part?
If it weren't for Marc Emery and others pushing the envelope, with the subsequent news coverage, over the course of more than two decades, I don't think we'd be facing the promised legalization. As if Trudeau, or Harper, or anyone, would decide one day to legalize cannabis without any public pressure. Who started the 4/20 gatherings and Cannabis Day on July 1st many (20+?) years ago, which helped put cannabis in the public psyche and polls? If everyone stayed complacent, nothing would ever change in a timely manner.
So why aren't they opening up unlicensed wine stores too?
Unlike the retail wine store, there aren't legal brick & mortar cannabis stores currently open. The dispensaries established the retail model and have been operating for decades in some cases, and the courts have repeatedly decided the dispensaries are a benefit and serve a purpose. They aren't going anywhere. I assume Marc and others like him desire a seat at the retail table in the coming distribution frawework, and he's willing to push his agenda. I also think he'd like to see local producers testing and supplying alongside the LP's. If nobody rocks the boat and raises concern over the little guy having an avenue to test and retail, do you think it will be allowed/included? Likely not. Personally, I'd rather purchase cannabis via smaller, local producers, and I'm guessing most feel the same.
Governments making millions on illegal pot shops: Owners
BY
CHRIS DOUCETTE, TORONTO SUN
FIRST POSTED: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2017 09:35 PM EST | UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2017 06:50 AM EST
Governments have reaped hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes, licensing costs and other fees from just two illegal Toronto pot shops, say the dispensaries’ owners.
And they estimate federal, provincial and municipal governments have already collected millions from the rogue businesses across Canada while the country waits for marijuana to be officially legalized.
“My one Cannabis Culture on Church St. paid $434,000 in HST payments for the three months, from October to December, and $22,000 in payroll deductions,” the self-proclaimed Prince of Pot Mark Emery said Tuesday, disputing a recent Toronto Police claim that dispensaries are not paying taxes.
Emery claims that when he made his first HST payment to Canada Revenue Agency, he was informed as many as 100 pot dispensaries across the country have been paying their taxes.
A perpetual line of customers with cash in hand, filed through his smoke-filled shop on Church St. Tuesday afternoon. A private security guard, hired in the wake of the recent spike in pot shop heists, kept watch nearby.
Emery said business has been growing so rapidly since he started selling dispensary weed at the location last fall that the store’s 28 employees can barely keep up.
The booming location typically handles more than 1,500 customers a day, but last Friday the shop soared to a new high when 1,932 people stopped in to buy cannabis prior to the long weekend, he said.
“Sales from that one day alone amount to about $10,500 in HST for CRA,” Emery said, adding the shop’s HST total for 2017 could be close to $2 million by year’s end.
“That’s all new revenue that used to just end up on the street,” he said. “So the government is the biggest stakeholder in my business.”
Weed the North owner Cory Stoneham, who jokingly referred to himself as the King of Cannabis after appearing on the front of Tuesday’s Toronto Sun, said he faces similar dilemmas but on a smaller scale because he’s still growing his business.
The ongoing threat of police raids also go hand-in-hand with operating an illegal business, but Stoneham claims cops went too far when they raided his Eglinton West location for a second time last month — allegedly damaging his storefront sign, tearing the wrap plastered across the shop’s front windows and smashing open an ATM owned by a third party.
Police deny any wrongdoing.
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http://www.torontosun.com/2017/02/21/governments-making-millions-on-illegal-pot-shops-owners
