Cannabis retailers frustrated over failed Steinbach petition

Steinbach’s first-ever cannabis store won’t be arriving any time soon after proponents of the store were denied the right to hold a plebsicite.

A plebiscite vote can only happen around provincial elections, which are held once every four years, and require signatures of 20 percent of registered voters. Retailers TobaGrown and Flamingo Plus were denied permission to hold a plebiscite to ask if the community wanted a cannabis store or not, due to not meeting the criteria.

“Look at the last election, in Steinbach, our petition was three times as many as the people that showed up four years ago. That is a concern for the city councillors who are using their personal bias, the fact that cannabis has been illegal for most of their life,” TobaGrown Founder Jesse Lavoie said.

Lavoie said his petition had 4,000 plus signatures but only 900 signatures were accepted. He said the city rejected the majority of signatures over a rule that people must put their street numbers when they sign a petition.

Lavoie also said a similar petition in Winkler was recently approved, and the Winkler city council was more supportive than Steinbach’s. Winkler and Steinbach both decided against selling cannabis when it was legalized in 2018.

“Winkler city council was talking about us doing this. We were on the YouTube channel for the council. We were allowed to put up billboards,” Lavoie said.

He said his request to make a public presentation to city council was also denied in spring 2025. Lavoie said he is particularly upset over the fact that the city won’t allow him to do a presentation. He believes the city council is personally biased on the matter.

“We were not allowed to enter the city council building,” Lavoie said.

However, Mayor Earl Funk said Lavoie’s petition did not meet the eligibility criteria set by the Liquor Gaming and Cannabis Authority (LGCA), and the council had nothing to do with that.

“If we have a plebiscite and the people vote, and it’s in favour then we have cannabis being sold,” Funk said.

Lavoie said he will not give up and will be back around the next provincial elections.

“We are going to do everything possible to make this right, starting with the premier and LGCA,” he said.

Meanwhile, Flamingo Plus co-founder Vadim Andreyev said he is considering opening a cannabis store outside the city but closer to Steinbach. Flamingo Plus has a vape store in the city that also sells cannabis accessories, such as bongs, papers and grinders.

“We see it by the numbers of customers we have and the next approach will be to open additional cannabis stores around the area,” Andreyev said.

Funk said Lavoie asked council for the vote but council didn’t feel the need because no resident brought it up in Steinbach in the eight years since cannabis was legalized.

“The cannabis decision or to sell cannabis, that’s never come up. So we felt it was probably something that the community voted very heavily against in 2018 and we felt probably the community really hasn’t changed.” Funk said.