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That assessment appeared to contradict the press release, dated June 26, 2018 — when Aceto was not yet CEO — which specifically stated CannTrust had “begun construction of an additional fully funded 600,000 square feet expansion.”

“I’m not sure where that came from, but I can tell you we had applied for our permits prior to the Town of Pelham deadline, and we’re working on getting them with the Town, but construction of the Phase 3 expansion has not yet started,” Aceto confirmed.

Aceto says that CannTrust has a “plethora of options” available to the company to meet production targets, from “acquiring a licensed producer and buying greenhouses in other parts of the country.”

“But we’d like to continue building in Pelham. We have a facility there already, and we’re going to take the right steps to make sure our neighbours are not impacted by us growing cannabis in the region,” he said.

According to BMO analysts Sklar and Chen, the Town of Pelham’s planner indicated that a key issue for residents was odour.

“Other issues include parking availability and supplemental lighting at night,” they wrote.

The accumulation of various cannabis growers in one place has gotten people to say maybe we should be thinking about this in a different way, let’s slow this down CannTrust CEO Peter Aceto

Aceto attributes the conservatism in the town toward cannabis to the number of cannabis producers that have set up shop in the Niagara region.

“The accumulation of various cannabis growers in one place has gotten people to say maybe we should be thinking about this in a different way, let’s slow this down.”

Meanwhile, some CannTrust shareholders have expressed frustration at the way in which the company has gone about communicating the construction delay.