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Days after Calgary began accepting development permits for retail cannabis stores, data shows more than 25 per cent of would-be dispensaries want to open their doors in just a handful of communities.

More than 200 applications were submitted within 17 minutes of the permit office opening last Tuesday. Those numbers are expected to shoot up as retailers looking to break into what some in the growing industry have called the new wild west. By Thursday, the city had received 246 applications.

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Despite the clustering of retail cannabis permits, Calgarians in those neighbourhoods don’t seem to mind the flood of applications coming into their communities.

The city’s numbers show more than 28 per cent of the applications have been made for locations in the Beltline, the Kensington area and along 17th Avenue S.W.

On 17th Avenue S.W., more than a dozen permit applications are in the works between 14th Street and 4th Street S.W., alone. Some addresses have multiple applications from different companies, one of which has at least six.