The Société québécoise du cannabis (SQDC) will soon begin a project aimed at extending the opening hours of 19 of its retail branches.

The move, which the provincial agency says will help make its legal cannabis stores more competitive, comes following the adoption of Quebec’s Bill 8 (commonly known as PL85), which amends the regulation respecting periods of admission to commercial establishments.

The first store with extended hours will open on July 7, while an additional 18 locations will begin operating with extended hours starting August 3.

The extended hours will be in effect from Thursday to Saturday until 10 pm, and on Sundays until 6 pm. The hours will remain until 9 pm from Monday to Wednesday. The SQDC also says it had planned to benefit from such business hours when it opened its first 12 branches in 2018. 

There are currently 107 SQDC locations in Quebec, including the Vieux-Montréal location, which is scheduled to open on July 7. The SQDC says an additional Montréal store will join the list later this fall, and an exception will be made for another Montréal store.

“The objective of this initiative is to further counter the illegal market at a time of day when demand is present and illegal sellers are active,” explains Jean-François Dulac-Lemelin, Senior Vice President, Customer Experience. 

“We want to continue to better serve consumers by improving access to lower-risk products. This project will allow us to better understand their behaviors and habits. Nearly 20% of our customers who purchase cannabis outside our network cite opening hours.”

The new Vieux-Montréal location opening on July 7 will feature several of the changes introduced by the SQDC over the last year, with the goal of improving its concepts and customer experience, such as island display cases and displaying products by category (dried flowers, edibles, pre-rolls, hash, etc.).

“We are very pleased to open a new store in this part of the city and further increase the coverage of our market,” said the Vieux-Montréal store’s manager, Mario Quattrociocche. “Our advisors have received the necessary training and are ready to field questions from a  diverse range of customers. Our model is already well viewed abroad.”

In February, the SQDC rolled back the closing time of a dozen of its locations across the province from 9 pm to 6 pm. None of the new locations with extended hours were included in that list. 

The SQDC recorded $741.5 million in sales for the fiscal year ending March 29, 2025. 

The 149,223 kg of cannabis sold in provincial stores and on SQDC.ca in 2024-2025 generated a net profit of $118.1 million. Combined with additional taxes, this resulted in $295.9 million going back to the provincial government.

This was an increase from $662.1 million in sales and net income of $104.1 million in the previous year, with $258 million going back to the province. The amount of cannabis sold in the province also increased by 21.8%, from 122,478 kg in 2023-2024.

Featured image via Google Maps

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