City notebook: Insert corny pot pun here

By Collin Gallant on September 1, 2018.

It’s been a wild ride toward pot legalization over the past year.

A glimpse of just how wild was given to News readers this week when the paper revealed that a bidding war between two national retail interests resulted in an unrelated bank being initially approved to sell cannabis.

It’s sort of a complicated tale, but essentially a company looking to set up a chain across Western Canada leased a local lease site-unseen, then submitted the wrong address to local city planners.

An incorrect address turned out as a local bank.

It’s sort of a silly mistake, but it highlights the flat out sprint that’s occurring to get in front of the green rush as marijuana legalization approaches this October.

A good joke is that pot retailers are now spending money like the oil patch used to.

And investors have been more than willing to load money into a cannon in order to get in on the ground level of the industry.

In some ways, who can blame them?

Can you name another industry or investment that’s considered a surefire candidate for growth over the next decade?

In some way it harkens back to liquor store privatization in Alberta that took place about 25 years ago.

It was seen as a huge money making opportunity at the time and a lot of community-scale mom and pop shops sprung up. Today, except for a few independent retailers, the market is mostly controlled by conglomerates.

Also, of note this week, it’s finally happened: Someone local has snapped up the name “Grass City Inc.” according to the list of Alberta corporate and business registrations.

Quick ones

Did you here the latest news about the auto talks between Canada, the U.S. and Mexico? Apparently, cars assembled in Canada will have horns that say “sorry!”

A competition board ruling this week states realtors cannot keep secret previous selling prices of property from potential buyers, drawing objection from the 50,000 members of the Toronto Real Estate Board.

The total population of the Greater Toronto Area is 6.4 million, meaning that one out of every 128 Torontonians is in the real estate industry.

A look ahead

City council reconvenes on Tuesday night with a light agenda. A city committee meeting this week will hear further plans by the city’s land department to sell off smaller parcels of excess land, similar to a proposal to market greenspace in Connaught as a possible townhouse site.

All is right with the universe again as the local school year kicks off on the Tuesday following Labour Day, as it should — though its worth mentioning that it’s a very early holiday Monday this year.

100 Years ago

Hatters would begin receiving unified utility statements as city treasurer Baksie proposed a plan to lower printing costs, the News reported on Aug. 29, 1919.

A “bookkeeping machine” installed at city hall in 1916 had cut staffing costs, but produced three sheets denoting electric, gas and water accounts for each residence.

Combining them into a joint statement would save about $100 per year in stationary and “be more convenient” for ratepayers, according to Mayor Brown.

British troops penetrated the Von Hindenburg Line, and word arrived that Pte. Tassle Bliss was admitted to military hospital with gunshot wounds, marking the fourth time the local man had been wounded in the conflict.

Labour Day was proving a busy time for, labour interests in the City. Aside from preparing for the annual sports day,

Over three weeks in August strikes were threatened by railway mechanics and telegraph operators as well as postmen who all objected to government moving to impose wage and contracts under wartime powers.

A News editorial suggested unrest was due to an unrestricted rise in the cost of living during wartime, and any logical man would request an unrestricted rise in wages, whereas price controls would be preferable.