RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Price Points & Profit TL/DR In an effort to make things fair and equitable, the province settled on screwing everyone simultaneously.
--------------------
I live in Ontario and most store owners got hosed, though many new ones now are just making bad decisions.
Originally the Liberals plan had cannabis as a provincial store/LCBO setup going into the election. LCBO did everything possible to have nothing in place by the end of the election.
Conservatives win, drop the LCBO idea (LCBO feined like this was a travesty until you asked them why they were so far behind on everything). Instead they went with a lotto system for stores, which would also describe the OCS's CEO situation.
The first few CEO's setup provincial distribution like they were supplying a small neighborhood. Undersized warehouse, minimal planning for retail growth.
The retail lottery was an absolute JOKE. Some people who won had no plans to open a store, several auctioned their newly won licences to the highest bidder.
Ontario set up this insane wait list for applications where you needed your store fully built to code before you would be put on the waitlist. Some people paid rent for months on their storefront without being allowed to sell anything.
This giant wait list boondoggle is created, thats when the OCS' new CEO (different from previously mentioned, gone already) opened the large warehouse that is a *secret location nobody knows the wearabouts of* [unless you live in Guelph].
So everyone on this waitlist had no idea the govt was giving out licenses to 10 stores on the same block, then suddenly they ramped up licensing from 5 stores a week to 20, then 40. Pretty sure its more now.
So now you have hundreds of stores who were blocked from having a first movers advantage, drained of savings, and being thrust from a market where there was no service into a market that was instantly saturated.