Pot-trepeneur expanding to St Pierre

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This article was published 21/06/2021 (1468 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The empty space may not look like much right now, but in roughly one month the vacant building on Sabourin Street in St Pierre will boast recreational cannabis products for seasoned users and amateurs alike.

Pat Schmitke, owner of the latest location in his line of cannabis dispensaries, said the demand for access to the once-illicit recreational drug is rising in rural communities, aptly naming the business Rural Buds.

“People come into my shops and tell me how happy they are they don’t have to drive to the city to get their stuff anymore,” Schmitke said.

“There’s a lot more people who use it than most of us think.”

Although he’s not a user himself — Schmitke slyly admits to experimenting as a teenager “as most kids do at one point or another” — the Morris resident seemingly fell into the business of selling recreational pot.

Previous owner of the Bigway Foods in St Jean, Schmitke was looking for a way to make the store more profitable and settled on an age-restricted shop within the grocery store. However, in the process of crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s to acquire a license to sell cannabis he quietly sold the grocery location to another owner, leaving his preliminary plans to sell cannabis up in smoke.

Despite the bump in the road the grocer proceeded to open two dispensaries, one in Morris in October 2020 and a recent opening in Carman. With the success of the two shops Schmitke will be opening his third location and second store under the ‘Rural Buds’ name.

It’s not all about being a legal pot dealer for Schmitke: he says as a businessman he seeks to keep as many dollars in the community as possible, therefore bringing access to the product to residents rather than have them flocking to Winnipeg or Morden to purchase it.

“I look at it as a as a product that’s legal, the government has legalized it, they regulate it. Therefore, somebody is going to sell it, somebody is going to create the opportunity in some of these small towns to provide a service to the people and sell a product so that they don’t have to go to Winnipeg.”

The dispensary will feature many of the same products found in larger shops in city centres across the province ranging from traditional, dried cannabis to products of the future — beverages, gummies, chocolate, among other varieties. The shop plans to carry CBD products which provide all the medical benefits of cannabis without the psychoactive effects from THC.

“It’s not about getting high anymore, there’s a lot of health benefits to it,” Schmitke said.

“If you think that you don’t have cannabis in your community you’re wrong. So you might as well give those that want to use it the opportunity to buy a safe, regulated, quality product in a safe, regulated environment.”

With a plan to open mid-July, Schmitke hopes to have a grand event to mark the occasion depending on COVID-19 restrictions in the province.