Ontario has unveiled what its new weed shops will look like

New details for the Ontario Cannabis Store are providing a further glimpse into how recreational weed is going to be sold after it becomes legal later this year, including a description of the layout of the shops, and training plans for salespeople at the new Crown corporation overseen by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario.

It’s one of the most detailed plans released by any province or territory, and could provide inspiration for other jurisdictions as they move ahead with their legal cannabis retail models.

Unlike the province’s liquor stores, cannabis shops will have a lobby area that customers must go through before entering the retail space, the LCBO and OCB announced in an update posted online this week. There will be no products in the lobby, and no one under the age of 19 will be permitted to go beyond it.

Once inside the retail space, customers will be able to access cannabis and accessories.

“It will be an education-driven experience, with product information available throughout the retail ‘explore and learn’ area and via one-on-one staff service,” an LCBO spokesperson told VICE News in an email.

Because of provincial regulations prohibiting anyone from consuming cannabis beyond their private residence, customers won’t be able to test the product in store, like they could at the LCBO.

“There will not be tastings,” the LCBO spokesperson wrote.

And neither will the corporation test the products beforehand. “Product will be pre-packaged by the licensed producer before it is received by the OCS. The OCS will not be testing product and will only buy pre-packaged and pre-labelled product adhering to federal law.”

As for the training that Cannabis Store salespeople will undergo, the LCBO spokesperson said details will be available “in the coming months,” but that employees “will be knowledgeable about the product and that includes safe consumption, recreational use, and that would include considerations of effect.”

“The OCS is prioritizing factual information and composition of the product; the call includes details on Indica/Sativa dominance, THC and CBD levels and potency, and terpene profiles,” the spokesperson continued.

Trina Fraser, a business lawyer in Ottawa who specializes in cannabis policies, said she was pleasantly surprised by the array of information the OCS is asking licensed producers to include on their applications to have their products sold there.

“It’s not just here’s what strain it is, here’s the THC and CBD content,” said Fraser in a phone interview. “There seems to be an inclination to allow producers and processors to differentiate their products by telling more about them … where it was grown, how it was grown, what the genetic makeup of the strain is.”

“Those are all pieces of information that are going to be relevant and appealing to certain buyers,” she said.

For Deepak Anand, VP of government relations for consulting firm Cannabis Compliance Inc., the failure of the OCS is the number stores it plans to open: 40 at first and 150 by 2020. And, he says the province will likely see a severe supply crunch with the 40 stores alone.

“There’s no way 40 stores will even come close to meeting the needs of Ontarians,” Anand told VICE News on the phone from a cannabis conference in Germany.

“And there’s a limited variety of things that can be sold online.” Those two concerns together will likely mean the black cannabis market will continue to thrive in the province, at least in the short term, he said.

However, Anand said he was pleased to see that the OCS is opening up the calls for products to companies that are in the process, but may not have yet been granted, their official license to produce cannabis from Health Canada.

“There’s admittance on behalf of the government that there’s going to be a supply shortage and they want to make sure they’re not limiting themselves to the licensed producers,” said Anand.

Nonetheless, he predicts there will be long lineups at the storefronts once the legal market opens up. “Once legalization comes into effect … they need to do a good job of putting info out there in terms of what the online model looks like.”

Another factor Anand said could throw a wrench into Ontario’s legalization rollout is the upcoming provincial election in June, which could see Progressive Conservative leader Doug Ford, who has supported a private cannabis sales model, become Premier.

“I think cannabis is going to be an election issue in Ontario,” said Anand. “That’s the wild card.”