Following the acquisition of a processing facility in 2022, popular cannabis brand Ghost Drops says they have closed their flagship Toronto retail location. 

First opened in April 2022, the Ghost Drops store at 1184 Queen Street West in Toronto featured limited edition drops of Ghost Drops products.

Now that Ghost Drops has also purchased a 10,000 square foot cannabis processing facility in Ontario in November 2022, the company is pivoting away from retail to ensure compliance with Ontario regulations, and to focus more on production. 

The store’s final day was January 31, 2023.

“You likely are aware that in Ontario, Licensed Producers can only own up to 25 per-cent of shares in a retail cannabis store (unless that store is located on the same site as a production facility),” explains Gene Bernaudo, CEO of Ghost Drops, in an email to StratCann. 

“After this change, and assessing our ownership stake situation in 1184 Queen Street West, we decided that our resources were better allocated towards controlling the manufacturing and distribution of our products in order to continue the growth of the Ghost Drops brand.”

Bernaudo says the decision was not related to any concerns with cannabis retail saturation in Ontario, and says the company has no current plans to open any additional retail locations in Canada. But he adds that they are also “assessing new ways to allow our consumers to experience the Ghost Drops brand in-person and have some announcements coming soon.”

Ghost Drops has been in operation since 2017 as a cannabis brand, before officially launching in the legal cannabis market in Canada in 2021. The company has been partnering with licensed cannabis producers in Canada to bring their various cultivars to market, such as Donny Burger, Baklava, White RNTZ, C.R.E.A.M. Cake, King Sherb, First Class Funk, Khalifa Mints, and Z-Splitter.

Products are currently offered in pre-rolls, blunts, 3.5-gram and 14-gram packs and are available in hundreds of retail cannabis stores across Canada.