Indopedia All Things Marijuana
While many of these opportunities are being snatched up by larger corporations, at least one retail license has been awarded to a young, local entrepreneur.
Cierra Sieben-Chuback, a 23-year-old student at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, just won one of the seven cannabis retail licenses being made available in the city of Saskatoon. “This is quite surreal, I’m not going to lie.” The student, who is due to graduate this week, has never run a business before, but was still able to beat over 150 applicants for these sought-after licenses.
Last week, the Saskatchewan Liquor and Gaming Authority held a lottery to choose 51 cannabis entrepreneurs to award licenses to throughout the province. Lottery winners were then subjected to a final screening based, in part, on their financial qualifications. Sieben-Chuback passed this screening, as she is being financed by her father, who runs a successful auto body shop. If approved, recreational cannabis will be legally available for sale by the end of the summer. In many provinces, like Saskatchewan, cannabis licensing is being overseen by the provincial government agency that handles alcohol regulations.
Sieben-Chuback is the only local entrepreneur to win one of the licenses in Saskatoon; the others were awarded to businesses based in other cities, or corporate partnerships. Unlike these other applicants, Sieben-Chuback drew up the application in her bedroom as part of her classwork. “I was told I have to take a bunch of pills every day for the rest of my life,” she said. “That’s not something that interests me. So I looked into other methods of treatment and then that was kind of my inspiration moving forward into this industry.” She added that she hoped that her new dispensary could have “a bit of an emphasis on that medical side” if the province’s regulations allow it.
