Legal pot shops in Vernon see surge in customers following recent raids

November 4, 2024 | David Brown

Cannabis retailers in Vernon, BC, say they have seen an increase in new customers in the days following recent raids of several unlicensed stores operating just outside city limits.

Provincial inspectors recently closed down a handful of unlicensed cannabis stores operating on Okanagan Indian Band Land near Vernon over a few days at the end of October. Although those stores have reportedly now reopened, some owners and managers at licensed retail shops in the Vernon area say they saw an increase in new customers following those temporary closures.

“Yes we have seen an increase in customers, especially new customers,” says Sarah Ballantyne, the owner of Spiritleaf Vernon. Ballantyne says her store even had to place a larger weekly order to respond to this increased demand.

She says she has seen similar cycles of new customers following other enforcement actions in the past, which can ebb and flow depending on how fast the raided stores restock and re-open.

“We go through this every once in a while when it happens. It can be a bit of a rollercoaster, but we get restocked every Thursday.” Lower-priced ounces, she notes, have been in particular demand.

Lance Ashlin-Mayo, the manager at Lucid Cannabis in Vernon, says he’s seen a similar increase, if only briefly.

“I have noticed an uptick in sales,” Ashlin-Mayo tells StratCann.

Still, not all of the new customers passing through his doors stick around, he says, as some still balk at the prices in the legal market, as well as the restrictions on edibles that don’t exist in the unregulated or illegal market.

“There’s some things with a legal store, we just cannot compete with them, and that’s flower and concentrates.” he continues. “They can sell flower for like $60 an ounce. I can’t even buy it from the government for $60 an ounce, and that’s before I mark it up. And the government ties my hands on the edibles, while they’re selling gummies with 100 milligrams [THC].”

“I’ve got people coming in and looking at my prices and yelling at me. And then I have people coming in and seeing the 10 mg edibles and turning around.”

“The people that were going to the Green Mile are on the low end of the pay scale. They like their weed, but they only have so much money. A lot of people on disability would go to the Green Mile to get as much as they could for the lowest price. People who have money, go to the legal stores.”

Some of these new people he’s seeing through his front doors stick around; others return to the illegal market as soon as they can.

“I’m a pretty good salesman, but people only have so much money.”