Cannabis shops in Waterloo Region

[Bob_McBob]

With the AGCO application from Canna Cabana Hamilton, there is now only one remaining license that could potentially be located in KW.

[Spokes]

I can't even figure out why someone might have thought this was the best option. Like what's the obvious benefit

[robdrimmie]

I can't even figure out why someone might have thought this was the best option. Like what's the obvious benefit

I think the Alcohol and Gaming Commission got a bit of a shit stick (in terms of effort and time available) handed to them and did the fastest thing they could think of. 

It's possible, though this is stretching for explanations and I think unlikely, that someone at the Commission intentionally picked a crappy system to stick it to... someone? I'm not sure but sometimes inside a bureaucracy weird decisions make sense for otherwise imperceptible political reasons.

It could also just be incompetence. They seem to have difficulty figuring out how to put spaces between words on their website for example, and fair, reasonable distribution of retail licenses is considerable more complex than pressing the space bar enough times. (https://www.agco.ca/cannabis/cannabis-re...soperators)

[ijmorlan]

It could also just be incompetence. They seem to have difficulty figuring out how to put spaces between words on their website for example, and fair, reasonable distribution of retail licenses is considerable more complex than pressing the space bar enough times. (https://www.agco.ca/cannabis/cannabis-re...soperators)

Weird. I actually took a look and a couple of the places where spaces are missing, there actually is a “U+202F : NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE [NNBSP]”. So there actually is a space, but it is the wrong kind. Very strange.

[tomh009]

It could also just be incompetence. They seem to have difficulty figuring out how to put spaces between words on their website for example, and fair, reasonable distribution of retail licenses is considerable more complex than pressing the space bar enough times. (https://www.agco.ca/cannabis/cannabis-re...soperators)

Weird. I actually took a look and a couple of the places where spaces are missing, there actually is a “U+202F : NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE [NNBSP]”. So there actually is a space, but it is the wrong kind. Very strange.

Interesting … I don't see this behaviour at all, or the above code in the HTML source. Maybe the fixed it?

[jamincan]

Me neither. I do see lots of non-breaking spaces, though. (&nbsp

[ijmorlan]

Weird. I actually took a look and a couple of the places where spaces are missing, there actually is a “U+202F : NARROW NO-BREAK SPACE [NNBSP]”. So there actually is a space, but it is the wrong kind. Very strange.

Interesting … I don't see this behaviour at all, or the above code in the HTML source. Maybe the fixed it?

It’s still the same as far as I can tell. I’m copying from “Show Page Source” in Safari into http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Unicode/whatisit.html.

[jamincan]

I see now. Chrome seems to show a slightly narrower space there (as an example, between "the" and "provincial" in the first sentence of the second paragraph). Wikipedia suggests that this would be standard behaviour, but that some fonts show a thin space instead.

[ijmorlan]

I see now. Chrome seems to show a slightly narrower space there (as an example, between "the" and "provincial" in the first sentence of the second paragraph). Wikipedia suggests that this would be standard behaviour, but that some fonts show a thin space instead.

Don’t get me started on spaces in fonts. If there is any set of characters that should be correctly coded in absolutely every font, the 16 or so space characters are it. There is no actual glyph, just a width. How hard can that be to get right?

[Bob_McBob]

Well it's official, we aren't getting a retail cannabis store until at least next year. The last AGCO license for the west region is going to a second store in Hamilton, leaving huge parts of the province with no stores.

[Spokes]

Such a broken system.

[ijmorlan]

Fundamentally, I think the problem is that some people can’t let go of the idea that things need to be controlled and managed by government. Now obviously I don’t think there should be no regulations around marijuana; but legal should mean legal. Anybody who follows some reasonable rules that relate to the goals of the regulatory regime should be able to open a store. No maximum number of stores, no allocation to various cities, just let people run their businesses.

This isn’t the only place where we see this. I’ve complained before about proposals to replace parking maxima with minima, and there are other examples.

[danbrotherston]

Fundamentally, I think the problem is that some people can’t let go of the idea that things need to be controlled and managed by government. Now obviously I don’t think there should be no regulations around marijuana; but legal should mean legal. Anybody who follows some reasonable rules that relate to the goals of the regulatory regime should be able to open a store. No maximum number of stores, no allocation to various cities, just let people run their businesses.

This isn’t the only place where we see this. I’ve complained before about proposals to replace parking maxima with minima, and there are other examples.

*blinks*...are you...umm...telling conservatives...they have too many government regulations?

You see this is why anyone who claims they vote conservative for the typical reasons (fiscal responsibility, small government, limited regulations) frankly proves themselves ignorant of the actual policy this party implements.

I think this is a better example of how regulation can be good or bad.  This is clearly done badly, but I can imagine many ways in which it could be done better, with an equivalent amount of control.

</political post>

[ijmorlan]

Fundamentally, I think the problem is that some people can’t let go of the idea that things need to be controlled and managed by government. Now obviously I don’t think there should be no regulations around marijuana; but legal should mean legal. Anybody who follows some reasonable rules that relate to the goals of the regulatory regime should be able to open a store. No maximum number of stores, no allocation to various cities, just let people run their businesses.

This isn’t the only place where we see this. I’ve complained before about proposals to replace parking maxima with minima, and there are other examples.

*blinks*...are you...umm...telling conservatives...they have too many government regulations?

You see this is why anyone who claims they vote conservative for the typical reasons (fiscal responsibility, small government, limited regulations) frankly proves themselves ignorant of the actual policy this party implements.

I think this is a better example of how regulation can be good or bad.  This is clearly done badly, but I can imagine many ways in which it could be done better, with an equivalent amount of control.

</political post>

Not so much too many as the wrong ones.

I don’t think it’s specifically a conservative problem, however. There are all sorts of things that are more “left” policies that would be better off left alone.

In some areas, I believe in very strict regulation. For example, I think that cigarette packaging should be generated by a computer program operated by the health ministry: the cigarette company puts in their brand name, consisting of maybe 8-20 ASCII characters, and their UPC, and it generates a PDF which is sent directly to the printer: no opportunity for advertising, creativity, or any brand-enhancing variation whatsoever between brands.

In other areas, I think we’re way better off letting individuals and businesses do what they want. For example, I don’t think the government has, or even could, have a good sense of how many marijuana stores there should be in any city. So that should be entirely unregulated. If every entrepreneur in the country thinks they’re going to make a killing in marijuana, then something “bad” will happen: too many stores will open, and after a while many of them will go out of business. But that’s really OK. It will come out in the wash, the properties will be used for something else, and the entrepreneurs will be more careful with their remaining capital.

[KevinL]

This is a case of the ruling party leaning more socially conservative than economically. They feel this move will be more appreciated by those in their base who clutch pearls over these changes, than the libertarians who want an open market.