Cannabis shops in Waterloo Region

[taylortbb]

Would you expect to see 11 barber shops or 11 shoe stores in the downtown?

I think there might be 11 hair cutting places in DTK, so not really a great comparison.

For beer and LCBO, they're monopolies, they have no need to proliferate as people will go to their stores regardless. If we had open liquor retailing I'm sure there'd be more than two in DTK.

In any case, I think you're missing the point. It's not that I think 11 cannabis stores is viable in DTK, it's that I don't think the city should interfere. The good ones will succeed, the crappy ones will fail, and we'll be left with a few good stores. If there was a 500m rule we'd be left with whichever two got to DTK first, and they'd have no incentive to do better as they'd have a protected monopoly.

I think most of the weed stores would otherwise be empty storefronts, so there's no harm to the public from a temporary over supply.