Aura Cannabis eyes mid-November opening for Riversdale pot store

Saskatoon's Riversdale will be home to a cannabis retail store.

The west-side neighbourhood  is the latest to be confirmed as a location for one of the city's seven future pot stores.

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Vancouver-based Aura Cannabis Inc. said the store, which will be in the space just west of Hometown Diner on 20th Street West,  will not open on Oct. 17, the day recreational cannabis sales become legal in Canada. The company is eyeing a mid-November opening.

"This is something that not everyone is sold on so we do not want to rush it," said Andrew Gordon, Aura's executive vice president.

Aura is entering a neighbourhood that only recently saw the departure of a liquor store disliked by some for its attraction of loiterers.

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"The legacy issue of some of those liquor stores was still pretty front-of-mind for a lot of stakeholders that had worked hard to really improve and address that issue in the neighborhood," Gordon said.

Gordon said Aura has been talking through locals' concerns for the last month and a half and is prepared to do so on an ongoing basis.   

The goal is to open an "inviting, socially responsible and compliant adult-use cannabis retail store," he added.

Gordon said Riversdale came to the top of Aura's list of potential locations due to the variety of stores in the area and its high foot traffic.

Aura's store, which has yet to be named, will initially employ up to seven people and potentially expand to 12 staffers, accounting for online orders and delivery.

The other confirmed cannabis store locations in Saskatoon are Living Skies Cannabis on 3rd Avenue, an as-yet-unnamed store on 2nd Avenue and The Pot Shack on Grosvenor Avenue.