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One of the cannabis strains Chris Felgate’s store will offer Oct. 17 is dubbed Blue Dream.

For the co-owner of Alberta’s first fully approved marijuana shop, it’s a fitting way to spark up a long-held ambition.

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“It’s exciting but, in some ways, it doesn’t feel real, like when you book a vacation and it’s not real until you’re on it,” said Felgate, who will operate 1,500 sq.-ft. Small Town Buds Cannabis Culture shop in Devon, a town of about 7,000 just southwest of Edmonton.

Recreational cannabis legalization, he said, “is not going to just be one of the best things to happen to Canada, but the world.”

Small Town Buds received its Alberta Gaming Liquor and Cannabis Commission (AGLC) licence about 2½ weeks ago, the first of 795 store applications submitted in the province to make it to the approval finish line, after jumping through numerous municipal and provincial regulatory hoops.

“We’ve already put in our order for cannabis, though it’s very limited — we don’t have access to everything we will have access to,” said Felgate, 29, who’s teamed up with wife Nicole in the venture.