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After its first full week of operations, the Société québécoise du cannabis has admitted that supplying its stores is proving to be far more difficult than foreseen and is worried about its ability to maintain its 12-store sales network.

And that crisis became quite real at noon Thursday, as the downtown SQDC outlet on Ste-Catherine St. announced to customers it was completely out of stock on all merchandise.

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“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” an SQDC employee posted outside the store told disgruntled customers. “You can try another store, but it’s the same supplier for all the outlets.”

While the same outlet announced it was completely out of stock on Wednesday, it was partially resupplied later in the day. And what of that inventory?

“It’s all gone,” said the employee. “We’re completely sold out.”

Seven days after cannabis became legal in Canada on Oct. 17, the SQDC recorded 138,150 transactions, a total of 84,850 of those purchases carried out in the agency’s stores and a level of traffic the Crown corporation says it had anticipated.