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5 | W aterloo C hronicle | T hursday,July 28,2022 w aterloochronicle.ca er. "They're still grey on the map, and I would suspect that some of them may have changed their mind," said Owen Allerton, the owner of Highland Cannabis in Kitchener. "It certainly has slowed down." After a fifth legal canna- bis retailer opened in up- town Waterloo in Febru- ary, joining more than a dozen others already au- thorized to open across the city, some foresaw satura- tion. Uptown Herb, with its entrance off Princess Street East in a small unit beside the Prohibition Ware- house, is one of three stores still operating in the core, after two with King Street frontages -- Hyerlove and Hunny Pot -- closed earlier this year. "Everybody jumped on the ball, thinking it's money that grows on trees, but the growers are getting hit even harder than new stores," said Uszynski. "Larger stores can't keep up their orders as much and sit on old product," he said. "We order smaller quan- tities of fresh stuff on a weekly basis, and there's a clearance section," he said. "I lose money on that be- cause I don't want people buying overpriced garbage. There's a lot of it." Uszynski said both his knowledge of cannabis and a strong work ethic have been keys to survivability so far in a market with hun- dreds of others forced to buy products from the same Ontario Cannabis Store. He and his wife are on site for up to 90 hours a week. "This isn't just work for us; this is our lifestyle," said Schnarr. "This our every- thing, and basically all of our costs and everything goes into it." Developing a personal, by-name rapport with those who come through their door -- 75 per cent are return customers -- is something the local couple has tried to establish since opening last August. Allerton and his wife, Niki, operate with a larger business concept at High- land Cannabis in Kitche- ner. Their 3,000-square-foot store on Highland Road West carries more than 1,600 products and celebrat- ed its one-year anniversary last winter with top sales in the region for two consecu- tive months. There are sometimes as many as 15 budtenders on the floor catering to cus- tomers on a Friday eve- ning. Allerton also sees plenty of opportunity for growth moving forward, especially when it comes to edibles and beverage sales. "We've got a lot of people coming in because they're just done with drinking al- cohol. They're finding a lot of benefits from cannabis -- better sleep, no hangover," Allerton said. "It continual- ly surprises me how many new customers we get." Highland led the prov- ince in beverage sales last December, and while the OCS is no longer providing ranked data due to a recent breach, he said sales have stayed steady. "Drinks are incredibly popular; they just don't make up a lot of sales when you can only buy five at a time and they're only $5 to $10 a drink." Allerton expects to see an easing of restrictions that force people to buy small quantities due to THC and CBD ratios that are al- ready much higher in other products, such as concen- trates and flower. However, "microdosing" with drinks and edibles opens options for people who've never smoked and have no interest in smoking and is producing great ex- periences for new custom- ers, which Allerton be- lieves is perhaps the biggest key to growing business. "If you sell something that's too potent for a first- timer or a newcomer, you could turn them off canna- bis forever," he said. "But if you do a good job of finding them a product that's going to be geared nicely for their tolerance and what you think that they're after and they have a good experi- ence, they're going to come back." STORY BEHIND THE STORY: After two canna- bis stores closed earlier this year in uptown Waterloo, the Chronicle checked in with some local retailers for an update. NEWS Continued from page 3 'IT CONTINUALLY SURPRISES ME HOW MANY NEW CUSTOMERS WE GET' Owen and Niki Allerton are the owners of Highland Cannabis in Kitchener. Highland Cannabis photo