In separate releases, two out of three northern territories announced their solutions to the specific struggles of selling cannabis in remote northern areas: online sales. The Northwest Territories Liquor and Cannabis Commission (NTLCC) and the Yukon government announced that private retailers are now allowed to operate online stores.
Northwest Territories
In an announcement earlier this week, the NTLCC let retailers know that “qualified designated retail cannabis vendors” can now operate an online store to sell cannabis to NWT customers. This new allowance comes as an amendment to the Cannabis Products Act and Regulations.
The territory currently has six retail stores, as well as a provincial mail-order retailer, and so far only ReLeaf NT has had time to put up a website.
“They (NTLCC) put out an expression of interest a while back and we responded. I guess they kind of liked what they saw,” said Luke Wood, president of ReLeaf NT told NNSL Media. “What they’re doing is they determined that if you’re a designated cannabis vendor, like a retail store in the NWT that they recognize, you can go online.”
He says that customers are already using the service, which has replaced the province’s online store on the NTLCC website and is working on city-wide delivery in Yellowknife and self-serve kiosks within the store to make ordering smoother.
Yukon Territory
During COVID-19, private retailers were allowed to offer curbside pickup, however, the order was repealed with the promise of regulations allowing for e-commerce, which have just been announced. Under an amendment to the Cannabis Control and Regulation Act, private cannabis retailers in the Yukon will be able to sell products online and deliver them to customers in the Yukon. Currently, only Cannabis Yukon, the public retailer, is allowed to sell online, but once the amendment comes into effect any of the five private retailers in the territory can do so.