Over the past several years, dispensaries have sprouted up in many communities across British Columbia, with the majority located in Vancouver and Victoria. Recently they have begun spreading to other Canadian cities, including Toronto and Ottawa.

The City of Vancouver and its police department have taken a hands-off approach to dispensaries, intervening only if there is a risk to the public, such as sales to minors or links to organized crime. The police department says dispensaries are a “low priority,” although it has executed search warrants at roughly a dozen locations; most of those stores re-opened within weeks.

That reality has allowed the number of dispensaries in the city to explode, to more than 100 today from 14 in 2013, making them more common than Starbucks (the city’s database of business licences lists 91 Starbucks locations). Dispensaries operate openly in all corners of the city, many with sidewalk sandwich boards or bright neon signs advertising medical marijuana for sale.

The Liberals’ election victory last year appears to have emboldened operators elsewhere, with roughly 40 dispensaries up and running in Toronto by the beginning of 2016, up from about a dozen just a year earlier. Like in Vancouver, the police department in Toronto says dispensaries are not a priority.

The police response can be uneven and unpredictable. In Victoria, police have largely declined to intervene as the number of dispensaries increases, while the RCMP have taken action in some cities in B.C., such as Kelowna and Nanaimo.