Even by the usual slow churn of local government, the Resort Municipality of Whistler (RMOW) took a decidedly cautious approach to regulating cannabis retail. Where other jurisdictions jumped into the fray not long after Ottawa legalized recreational marijuana in 2018, it would be half a decade before Whistler saw its first dispensary, A Little Bud, open in Function Junction.
It is arguably a sign of how both Whistler, once a countercultural haven for hippies and burners seeking an alternative to the 9-to-5 grind, and Canada’s prevailing weed culture, have gone mainstream.
With an extensive approval framework that set out strict criteria for prospective pot shops, the RMOW eventually landed on a total of five permitted stores in the resort, each operating under a three-year temporary-use permit. With the opening, in late 2024, of The Nest at Nesters, all five shops are now up and running.
Just in time for 4/20, the world’s unofficial weed holiday, Pique checked in with the stores to see how business has been going so far, what it’s like operating in a ski town that welcomes the world, and the boons and barriers of an industry that hasn’t been the cash-cow some predicted it to be. (Representatives for This Is Cannabis, located by Mountain Square, did not return requests for comment.) We also toured the Sea to Sky’s only certified organic legal marijuana producer, Coast Mountain Cannabis in Pemberton, for a window into the production side of the business.
So, roll one up, burn one down, and let’s get into it.
High times
To a person, local cannabis retailers all expressed a desire to have entered the Whistler market earlier than they did, but they ultimately appreciated the thoroughness the RMOW applied to its approval process.
“Honestly, man, I found it took quite a bit longer than we hoped for,” said Spensir Sangara, founder of THC Canada on Main Street. “Overall, the experience was good, but we definitely ended up waiting a lot longer than we hoped for. At the end of the day, when we did end up opening, it was perfect timing around Christmas with the snow coming down.”
While acknowledging how rigorous the process was, Randy Tingskou, owner of A Little Bud, said he found it “very transparent, relatively easy to navigate, and there was communication with the RMOW.” Counting stores in White Rock and Summerland, Tingskou said Whistler was “one of our more favourable cities to apply in. It did come with a lot of requirements, but they aligned with the values that we as a brand and myself as a human being really believe in.”
On top of provincial and federal requirements, cannabis retailers had to meet the RMOW’s extensive list of approval criteria, with favour given to applicants for providing a living wage and housing to staff, committing to climate leadership, and pursuing Whistler’s health and social strategy goals.
While some retailers wondered why such stringent criteria have been placed on cannabis shops when alcohol merchants don’t have to make the same commitments, for the most part, they are happy to give back to the community they’re operating in. For the stores that can afford it, that has meant crucial donations to local charities. Tingskou said A Little Bud, for instance, donated a combined $18,500 last year to groups such as the Whistler Community Services Society and PearlSpace, as well as the Lil’wat Business Group.
But for the shops that didn’t have the months-long head start A Little Bud did and have only recently turned a profit, social enterprise has been a taller order.
“We want to do more giving back to local charities, but with the store just entering profitability now, it’s been on the backburner because we’re still repaying debt,” explained Jeff Sweetnam, who co-owns Spiritleaf, which opened in Creekside in late February 2024.
One barrier to profitability for retailers was a provincial requirement that applicants had to already own a property or have secured a lease agreement for their store before a cannabis licence could be issued. On top of the many costs already associated with launching a business, spending thousands of dollars on a storefront without any guarantee of securing a licence proved another tall mountain for retailers to climb.
“For a business, that’s a massive expense, holding onto a lease for a year and a half when you might not be able to open,” said Sweetnam, who added that he wished Victoria offered municipalities a more detailed framework to guide decision-making.
“I don’t think the problem lies with the local government, but the provincial government and their lack of ability to introduce a framework that works for everyone. They put more work on us, on council, and on the RMOW,” he said. “You want the municipalities to have their own independence because every city is different … but I think the province could have given more guidelines or a structure to play within.”
Partnering with local First Nations
Advancing Whistler’s reconciliation goals was another element of the RMOW’s merit-based approval system, with favour given to applicants who committed to partnering with the Lil’wat or Squamish First Nations.
“We met with the retailers ourselves and talked about a revenue-sharing agreement, but we also talked about ways we can potentially be allies in the industry and how we could help or even possibly further partnerships down the road,” explained Rosemary Stager, CEO of the Lil’wat Business Group. “Definitely for the first year we were building that relationship, and then I think this year we’ll see the first payments on the percentage of revenue.”
Initially, the potential for a partnership meant the Lil’wat requested 51 per cent of a store’s business, which, while increasing a shop’s chance for approval, proved to be a non-starter for retailers. Ultimately, it was agreed that two per cent of profits would be shared with the Nations.
“We thought there could be very worthwhile partnerships to look into, which could give one of the businesses an advantage,” Stager said. “We’re just learning about it all and exploring the possibilities and learnings from other First Nations’ cannabis businesses in B.C.”
Stager sees opportunity down the line for the Lil’wat, particularly with the province offering incentives to join or increase participation in the cannabis industry. The B.C. Indigenous Cannabis Fund, launched in 2022, covers the cost of licensing and permitting for Indigenous-owned businesses and First Nations, and also offers capital to support the launch or expansion of cannabis businesses.
“There are certainly special privileges for First Nations business in cannabis with the province now, so we’re keeping a close eye on that and looking at how we could partner or take advantage of those with any of the retailers,” Stager said.
So, how’s business?
No matter which way you look at it, it’s clear Canada’s legal cannabis industry, what with its litany of regulations, high tax rates, and tight restrictions on marketing, hasn’t turned into the moneymaker some anticipated.
It’s a reality Andrew Ellott was keenly aware of before entering the cannabis retail game. Co-owner of The Nest, Whistler’s only locally owned dispensary, with his wife Karen, the Ellots also own Nesters Liquor Store, an industry with similar margins. Given their years of experience in the local market, and with some urging from their landlord, the Ellotts decided to apply to open a dispensary in Nesters, the last of the five permitted licences available.
“I’ve been in Nesters so long, and I’ve known the landlord so long … and he contacted me, saying, ‘We’re getting all these freaking people from Ontario and all over the country trying to contact our tenants, trying to buy tenants out of their space.’ Everyone wanted that last licence,” he said. “There’s a lot of synergies with the liquor business and I thought, ‘Maybe we can do something here.’ But I’ve had a lot of people already calling trying to buy it from me, all these guys who missed out. There’s guys who’ve got 200 stores across Canada, and they want one in Canada’s party town, because they have the leverage and the buying power to squeeze much more out of it than a single store owner like I am. It helps in their marketing, because Whistler’s this iconic place.”
Several other retailers mentioned this as a key element of Whistler’s appeal: although they may not make a fortune here, there is inherent value in being associated with the Whistler brand, not to mention the opportunity to sell product to destination visitors eager to sample B.C. bud.
“For us, I think it helps make us an international brand,” said Sangara of THC Canada. “You’re getting tourists from all over: from Asia, Europe, Mexico. Every day we find we’re getting customers from around the world and we think it’s helping us expand our brand.”
Even with that association to Whistler and the West Coast, getting the word out can be a challenge for retailers, who are seriously limited in how they can market their business. The Cannabis Act tightly restricts marijuana marketing in Canada, including the promotion of pricing or distribution; appealing to young people; using testimonials or endorsements; depicting a person, fictional or real, character, or animal; and, vaguely, associating brand elements with “a way of life such as one that includes glamour, recreation, excitement, vitality, risk or daring.”
Asked what he’d like to see changed about the legal pot industry, Sangara was quick to call for relaxed laws “that let us really market the way that any other product is, similar to alcohol. They have different rules that hold us back from marketing to the full extent we want to.”
Between those marketing restrictions and the shop’s off-the-beaten-path location in Function, A Little Bud has positioned itself first and foremost as a dispensary for locals, offering discounts to Whistlerites and an additional discount to Function residents and workers.
“Function is starting to find its stride a bit more and people are becoming more aware of what’s there, but with the marketing restrictions, and the sign restrictions in Whistler, it’s very hard to make people know we’re there,” said Tingskou, owner of A Little Bud. “We were aware there would be obstacles to overcome in Function, but it puts us in a better position to serve the locals of the community first.”
Now that the industry’s shine has worn off somewhat compared to the early days of legalization, Sangara believes the retailers that will stick around are the ones who can overcome the barriers of today.
“We’ve been in the game almost a decade now and these last couple years have been some of the more challenging years we’ve experienced,” he said. “We truly feel the ones that make it out of this time are going to be set up for a long run in the industry.”
A sidebar about Coast Mountain Cannabis, suppliers to the world
Walking the twisting, gleaming white halls of Coast Mountain Cannabis’ 17,000-square-foot Pemberton facility can feel a little like being dropped into the labyrinthine Lumon office featured in Apple TV’s hit sci-fi series, Severance—except without the same pervading sense of dread. In fact, every staff member we meet on this unseasonably warm winter day seems to beam with positivity. Maybe it’s a consequence of wanting to put their best face forward for local media, but you get the sense it’s more than that. For this crew of growers and trimmers, many of whom previously worked in the black-market cannabis sector, it’s an opportunity to earn a legit living producing a product they believe in.
“The idea that we’re in B.C. [appeals to consumers], which I think is more about the wealth of black-market knowledge here,” explained Ellott of The Nest, who is also the co-founder of Coast Mountain Cannabis. “These guys just love being around the place. They are people who are really passionate about the industry and they get paid pretty well. It’s a reasonably good, solid job. If these guys weren’t working for us, they’d probably be doing some job in the tourist industry, commuting to Whistler every day. But now they’re able to work close to home and have decent jobs. That makes you feel good as an employer, that you’re giving people good jobs they can make a living at and they’re excited to go to work and are passionate about what they do.”
Along with serving the recreational market, Coast Mountain Cannabis is also certified to produce medical marijuana, regularly shipping its award-winning organic marijuana directly to its 700 or so clients. Ellott, who said the medical side makes up about five per cent of the company’s business, sees it as a growth opportunity.
“The biggest focus for me personally is growing the medical side, because … there is still a really, genuinely big medical market, and we sign up new medical patients every day,” he added.
Ellott, one of few organic licensed producers in Canada, has also positioned Coast Mountain Cannabis to capitalize on medical and legal marijuana markets in other countries, such as Australia, where medicinal weed is already legal and consumers are willing to shell out big bucks for B.C. pot. Aussie legislators also introduced a bill in 2023 aiming to legalize cannabis for recreational use. (The bill is currently pending a second reading and debate in the Senate.)
“If you think about the global markets, they are only going to get bigger,” he said. “And I think because people now realize the cost of building these production facilities, Canada’s got so much weed that, if you’re in Australia, the U.K., why would you try and grow it? Because you can just source it here at prices you probably couldn’t grow it for, especially in Europe and Australia, where electricity prices are so high. I mean, it’s prohibitive. So we have a huge advantage.”
Global markets are a fast-growing part of Coast Mountain Cannabis’ business. In 2023, Ellott said exports made up five per cent of the company’s revenue, rising to 48 per cent in 2024. This year? He estimates that ratio to reach as high as 90 per cent.
“The export numbers are going to be staggering this year compared to last year and the year before,” said Ellott.
Putting so many of his eggs in the export basket is at least partly due to how difficult it is to make money in the domestic market. (Ellott said 2025 will likely be the first year Coast Mountain Cannabis turns a profit.)
“We’ve been in the most inflationary global environment these last five years … and cannabis has gone completely the opposite direction. It’s literally gone down 60, 70 per cent in the time that everything else has doubled and tripled in price,” he said. “Cannabis has been in such a deflationary environment that we feel it’s stabilized … I mean, it can’t go any lower because nobody is making any money, really.”
Ellott has hope the market will turn a corner, particularly if the incoming federal government takes a close, hard look at the industry.
“They must know they’re the problem. If they could decrease their involvement in the industry, that would help,” he said. “There is hope that, in a post-Trudeau government, there will be some fresh eyes on the industry.”
Ellott is always looking for new ways to monetize the business. He has ambitions to launch public tours of the state-of-the-art, 17,000-square-foot facility in Pemberton’s Industrial Park, “anything we can do to squeeze out incremental revenue,” he said.
As for the future of legal cannabis production in Canada, Ellott thinks the first step will be to continue trimming the industry’s excess fat.
“In the future, there will be more consolidation,” he said. “I think the good thing is, over the last three years, we’ve seen huge amounts of excess production being taken offline as people … have shuttered million-dollar, million-square-foot facilities. That’s happening all across the country. So, the amount we’re producing is starting to come back to equilibrium.”
