[URBAN NOTE] "Kensington Market is Becoming a Haven for Pot Dispensaries"

[rfmcdonald]

The subtitle of Stefanie Phillips' Torontoist article, "'I'm so surprised,' said no one ever[,]", sums up my reaction as well.

On a road trip from Florida to San Diego and up the Pacific coast to British Columbia, Chris Cardozo made a pit stop in Venice Beach, California, where he purchased a licence to buy marijuana from dispensaries. From there, the Toronto-bound Cardozo stopped at dispensaries all along the way. “This is how it should be everywhere,” he thought. “This is awesome.”

Cardozo saw the weed industry like Mark Zuckerberg saw the internet: it was prosperous. He needed to get his foot in—and Toronto was the next mecca.

With help from business partners, Cardozo opened his own dispensary in Kensington Market: Toronto Holistic Cannabinoids, or THC (the acronym was intentional). Sitting on the corner of Baldwin Street and Kensington Avenue, THC was the second dispensary in the Market when it opened in July 2015. Now, almost a year later, there are 10 others.

The Market, Cardozo predicts, is well on its way to becoming Toronto’s hub for medicinal marijuana. “I don’t think these shops are going anywhere,” he says.

The Kensington Business Improvement Area is aware of the rise of dispensaries in the Market. They’ve seen trends before with vintage clothing stores, coffee houses, and bar-restaurants—but nothing as contentious as dispensaries. BIA chair and Market business owner Mike Shepherd says the increase in the shops is on the BIA’s list of concerns and it’s talked about at almost every meeting.