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Dubbed Canada’s cannabis capital, Calgary currently has 66 provincially licensed cannabis retail stores and three federally licensed cannabis production facilities, with development permits for further stores and production facilities under review.

Another 154 locations have been approved in Calgary.

Edmonton has the next most retails stores with 49, followed by Vancouver with 15 and Winnipeg with 14. Toronto and Montreal have just five and four brick-and-mortar cannabis shops, respectively.

City officials have bemoaned having to bear the brunt of administrative and enforcement costs when it comes to cannabis, without receiving equal financial benefits from the federal cannabis excise tax and revenues from provincial product sales.

“That was the big issue with the cannabis file, was that the other orders of government were going to make the revenue and the city was going to end up with the costs,” said Coun. Gian-Carlo Carra, who chairs the community and protective services committee.

“At the time, we were making that argument we had no idea what the costs might be. Luckily, it’s been a much quieter rollout than I think the doom and gloomers were worried about, but there are still material costs to the city.”

But after the UCP tabled a “nightmare of a budget” in October, Carra said funding from the province to address the city’s cannabis-related costs is just one of many things for which city officials will have to step up their advocacy.