Permitted to operate during the pandemic, even during lockdowns, Toronto’s marijuana shops have flourished and changed the character of an iconic neighborhood.

TORONTO — If you are hankering for a government-sanctioned joint, then you have come to the right city.

The options along Queen Street West are bountiful. You could start at Toronto Cannabis Authority, with a sign outside suggesting customers “warm up with hot cannabis infused beverages.” You could take a few steps down the sidewalk and enter Friendly Stranger, which trades on nostalgia for tokers who picked up their first bong here, long before cannabis was legalized three and a half years ago. Or you could dash across the street to the Hunny Pot, which made headlines in 2019, when it became the city’s first legal cannabis store and saw an overnight line of customers.

And that’s just in 1,000 square feet. Walk two minutes and three more options appear.

“There’s a standing joke in Toronto that dispensaries are sprinkled around like parsley. They are everywhere,” said Dalandrea Adams, a budtender standing behind the long glass display counter — revealing pipes, grinders and rollers — inside Friendly Stranger. “Which is convenient, if you are a pothead.”

As Toronto slowly comes back to life after two years of repeated lockdowns and closures, the wreckage of the pandemic is surfacing like cigarette butts in melted snow drifts. Along the city’s many neighborhood main streets, “For lease” signs hang in dusty windows. [Read More @ The NY Times]