By Jessie Weisner

AGLC plans to grant five cannabis retail licenses each week from now on

May 30, 2019 | 4:55 PM

MEDICINE HAT, AB — The freeze on cannabis retail licenses has been lifted in Alberta.

Alberta Gaming Liquor Cannabis (AGLC) has decided there’s enough producers to sustain more cannabis retail stores.

“We’ve obviously seen some improvement so far and that certainly was a big influence on the decision to remove the moratorium,” says Heather Holmen, senior communications with AGLC. “But also managing how many licenses we’re issuing gives us a better opportunity to monitor the supply based on how many licensees there are.”

The moratorium has been in place since November 2018, in an attempt to manage the nationwide shortage of cannabis.

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However, the number of Alberta’s licensed producers has now increased from 15 to 26.

“Today we have 26 licensed producers and we continue to have conversations with all producers,” says Holmen. “I think its safe to say essentially we’ve spoken with all licensed producers across the country.”

Medicine Hat cannabis store owners have expressed concern about stock selling out within hours of it arriving, but Holmen says the stock has improved over the past few months.

“We’ve seen improvement over the months and we’re continuing to see that improvement and we’re anticipating it’s going to sustain for a while here.”

In order to progressively release licenses, AGLC plans on grant five retail cannabis licenses each week.

“Part of the approach to support that is by issuing an additional five licenses per week, so today we’ve issued five new retail cannabis licenses,” says Holmen. “That also provides us with an opportunity to monitor the supply situation and make sure that indeed the sustainability is there to continue issuing them so we’ll continue to monitor.”

The number of licenses has now reach 106.

“65 at the time of the moratorium, we issued another 10 in January, we issued 26 in April and today we issued another five,” says Holmen. “Next week there will be another five and then subsequently each week thereafter there will be five more.”

Of the five new licenses issued Thursday, none were located in Medicine Hat.