Canadian coffee chain Second Cup (TSX: SCU) has announced that it is planning to covert some of its Ontario outlets to cannabis shops.
The news was greeted positively by investors who sent shares of Second Cup as high as $3.20 in trading on Thursday. Shares of Second Cup finished the day up 14 cents to $2.86 on the Toronto Stock Exchange
Second Cup announced that it has partnered with National Access Cannabis Corp. (NAC), and the two companies are actively looking at Second Cup shops that might be changed to cannabis retail stores that would run under the name "Meta Cannabis Supply Co."
Second Cup currently has more than 130 coffee outlets in Ontario. The announcement from Second Cup came after Ontario's Progressive Conservative government said earlier in the week that it was dropping a previous plan to sell cannabis through government-run stores in favour of letting private companies do it.
The Ontario government said it plans to launch a provincially run online cannabis store for the legalization of recreational pot on October 17, the date when cannabis becomes fully legal across all of Canada. The province said privately run physical cannabis stores will open by April 2019.
Second Cup and NAC had originally announced in April plans to set up a network of NAC-branded and operated recreational cannabis stores, focusing on Western Canada where it was legally permitted. However, in light of the change of direction in Ontario to allow private sales, the two firms announced the shift in their cannabis store plans.
Besides working with Second Cup in Ontario, NAC has plans to open 50 to 70 Meta retail cannabis stores in Manitoba, Alberta and British Columbia by the end of this year.
