As AMCTO initially reported, the Ontario government will be moving away from the lottery system and open retail stores to the market.

As part of this move, the government has amended Regulation 478/18 under the Cannabis License Act, 2018 and include the following changes:

• Eliminating the lottery for retail licenses

• Eliminating pre-qualification requirements for retailers

• Allowing licensed producers to open retail stores connected to a production facility

The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO) will begin accepting operator license applications from prospective retailers on January 6^th, 2020 and store authorization applications on March 2, 2020. It is projected the store authorizations will be issued in April at an initial rate of 20 per month. Licensed operators will be allowed to have up to 10 stores until September 2020, up to 30 stores until September 2021, and up to 75 stores after that.

Applications will only be eligible for municipalities that have opted-in to sell cannabis.

For more information, please see below:

AGCO: AGCO updates application process for cannabis retail licensing

Ontario Newsroom: Ontario Opening Cannabis Retail Market

AMCTO: Ontario Retail Cannabis Stores to Move to Open Market System Instead of Lottery