It’s been almost a year in the making and now northwestern Ontario has its first retail cannabis location in Thunder Bay.
Tokyo Smoke opened its doors to the public at 1082 Memorial at 9 a.m. Monday morning. Taylor Legarde arrived at the store at 7:30 a.m. because he wanted to be the first in Thunder Bay to buy cannabis legally in a store.
“I think it’s important we have a store because people are forced to use the Ontario government’s website, and I hope they have some reasonable prices so they can beat the black market,” Legarde says.
The 23-year-old hopes Thunder Bay will one day be home to multiple cannabis stores.
Director of Franchising, Canopy Growth Corp’s Melissa Gallagher says they wanted to franchise a Tokyo Smoke in Thunder Bay because its an underserved market.
“We’ve had a very positive response so far, it’s the first legalized recreational cannabis shop for miles and miles,” Gallagher notes.
Gallagher expects it to be a pretty busy day and says they have around 25 staff members with around ten working the floor on most days.
Co-owner Rick Bohonis grew up in Thunder Bay and now lives in British Columbia. He expects to see a couple of thousand people come through their doors Monday.
“It is the first store for northwestern Ontario, not just Thunder Bay we are attracting customers to this location. We feel like pioneers in a new industry and anyone we’ve talked to is just so excited,” Bohonis notes.
Co-owner Mike Rodenburgh is from Toronto and says it’s super exciting to be finally open after starting this process in August of 2019.
Rodenburgh feels there’s lots of employment opportunities with the business.
“We’re probably going to add to the staff count and they come from all walks of life including some Bombardier employees who were laid off, it’s a great employment story,” Rodenburgh says.
You can click the image below to see a photo gallery of the new store.
