While some Port Moody residents lament the arrival of high living in condo towers, it turns out others are living another kind of high.
According to the food delivery app, Uber Eats, the city ranks fourth in British Columbia for home delivery of cannabis products. The company started partnering with licensed cannabis retailers in the province in April 2023.
According to a news release, Uber Eats only provides the platform to facilitate the ordering of cannabis products through its app that connects to the online cannabis marketplace called Leafly. Certified staff from the cannabis retailers actually make the deliveries which includes verifying customers’ age and state of sobriety.
The top five cities in B.C. for cannabis deliveries through Uber Eats are:
- Victoria
- North Vancouver
- Vancouver
- Port Moody
- New Westminster
“Businesses choose to be on Uber Eats because it allows them to attract new customers, grow their existing customer base, generate repeat orders and increase the visibility of their brand,” said a spokesperson for the app, Keerthana Rang.
Two cannabis shops in Port Moody are listed in the Leafly marketplace — Kiaro and Burb. They comprise two of the three such retailers licensed to operate in the city.
The third shop, Bohemian Cannabis Co., ended home deliveries of its products on Feb. 3, according to its website.
In 2019, Port Moody council said it would consider rezoning applications for up to five cannabis retailers to operate in the city in the first year after the federal government legalized the consumption and sale of cannabis in 2018.
A staff report said the city had received more than 20 inquiries from potential operators of cannabis shops in Port Moody. Limiting the first rezoning applications to five would give council the opportunity to review them as a group to determine whether they were a suitable land use in the city, as well as set the table for additional applications after the initial 12-month period.
Kiaro and Burb subsequently opened in 2020 and Bohemian followed in 2021. Rezoning was approved in 2021 for a fourth cannabis retailer at 2343 Clarke St. but it has never opened.
- with a file from Glen Korstrom, Business in Vancouver
