Cannabis retailers ask RCMP to crack down on illicit market activity on Weedmaps Should Canada's RCMP begin cracking down on Weedmaps for allowing illicit operators to advertise on the platform? That's what several cannabis retailers want after submitting a letter to the RCMP's top brass seeking stronger enforcement against Weedmaps in order to shut down the proliferation of illicit cannabis dispensaries and delivery services. Weedmaps features thousands of illicit cannabis providers across Canada on its website as well as some of the country’s legal pot shops, but doesn't designate any difference between the two, creating customer confusion according to the letter. Compared to their legal peers, illicit competitors on Weedmaps can operate relatively unfettered and aren't beholden to the same strict regulations licensed operators need to abide by. Weedmaps and the RCMP weren't immediately available for comment.  Virus-free. www.avg.com

Fire & Flower nabs first Toronto location following Meta divestitureCannabis retailers Fire & Flower and Meta Growth took part in a rare store swap on Thursday. Fire & Flower is taking Meta Growth's Toronto location off its hands, for $750,000, plus the net working capital of the business. Meta Growth opted to sell the store following the company's merger with High Tide, which operates another pot shop several blocks away. Meta Growth announced it acquired the Toronto store from a provincial retail licence lottery  winner last month in a deal that was structured as a "share purchase, with the purchase price paid all in cash." It did not disclose specifics. The store will be Fire & Flower's first in Toronto, while another storefront the company has leased since late 2019 remains closed.  Virus-free. www.avg.com

Ontario pot shop owners upset at slow rollout of new store licences, thousands of dollars wasted It's the biggest consumer market in Canada, but some Ontario cannabis store applicants tell BNN Bloomberg they expect to be waiting for months for the provincial regulators to authorize their retail licences. That means that the applicants are paying thousands in rent for unopened stores, with some complaining a lack of communication and transparency from the AGCO has hampered their efforts to take part in the industry. With over 900 pot store applications waiting to be processed by the AGCO, only five licences are being issued each week. At that pace, it would take nearly two years to open a cannabis store if an application were submitted today. Analysts expect the authorization limit to be increased soon as the province completes construction on a second product distribution warehouse.  Virus-free. www.avg.com

Legal pot has never been cheaper: StatsCanCanadian legal cannabis prices fell to their lowest level since the drug was first legalized in the country, according to Statistics Canada for the month of July. The consumer price index for recreational cannabis fell to 89.2 in July, the lowest level since StatsCan began tracking legal pot prices. Prices have declined by 10.8 per cent since January 2019, when the national data agency first started to track inflation data for cannabis. Virus-free. www.avg.com

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ontarios-pot-store-lottery-winners-140004794.html  Virus-free. www.avg.com