More than a year after winning the chance to open one of Ontario’s first cannabis stores through a provincial lottery, Lisa Bigioni has walked away from her Niagara Falls cannabis shop.
The store had become like a second home and it was painful to leave, but Bigioni wanted to make good on a deal she signed with a large cannabis brand that helped get her shop up and running under the tight deadlines set by the province.
“(Choom Holdings Inc.) offered a whole bunch of expertise that I needed after the lottery, but then in exchange for that, they said, ‘we’d like to buy your store when the time is right.’ The time came and there was a great deal on the table, so here we are,” said Bigioni, who sold to the Vancouver-based company in April for $2 million in cash and $2 million in common shares.
She’s using the proceeds to open her own Stok’d cannabis store chain.
The Alcohol and Gaming Corporation of Ontario, which oversees cannabis retailers, couldn’t say how many of the first lottery store winners are still associated with the shops they opened, but The Canadian Press has counted several that have changed hands — and experts say more are likely to follow.
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