BofC Live is a podcast from Business of Cannabis. Delivering cannabis news and exploring the companies, brands, people, and trends driving the cannabis industry.
Owen Ritz and Reed Horton are the co-founders of Copilot, a would-be retailer in British Columbia looking to open cannabis retail stores within airports. Copilot recently announced that their initial shop would be located in Prince George, British Columbia. We connected with Ritz and Horton to talk about their idea, their journey and the current status of their BC location.
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BofC Live Transcript
Rosenthal | Tell us sort of a background about the company and sort of the thinking.
Reed | Owen and I were college classmates and teammates, and we kind of bonded over our shared distaste of travel travel. We both thought travel was stressful. We would talk about how we could improve the experience, how we can make it better, more enjoyable. We had a million different strategies, you know, our friends had different strategies. We saw people who were using cannabis more and more to make their travel experience. Then Owen actually took a consulting trip to the Czech Republic and he saw a beer vending machine in the airport and that’s kind of when it all clicked and put together. And, and after that we started talking. You know, people are using cannabis for travel. Cannabis is improving their travel experience, but it’s still kind of inaccessible. It’s inconvenient. There’s a lot of confusion around what is allowed, what isn’t allowed. So that’s when Owen and I really started talking about, “okay, you know, let’s build a company around cannabis and travel and try to improve the travel experience using cannabis, make it convenient, make it accessible, make it simple.”
Rosenthal | Owen will go to you. Talk about the thought process and those ideas to like opening up or, or about to open up in BC, talk a little bit about that journey and the location you guys have picked out.
Owen: So as Reed mentioned, we had this concept of cannabis and travel, and we knew that we were interested in opening up a kind of a store in airport, but there was a long process from turning that idea into a business. It began in February of 2020, when you started reaching out to airports in Canada, we knew that was the place to start given the federally legal there in the United States, due to the rules of multi-state operating it’s not feasible. Immediately we received a lot of positive feedback from airports and from the start they have been really open-minded and supportive of this concept, but also us and kind of has built a partnership along the way almost for two years now. And we’ve been working on this concept in terms of translating that partnership into a store, it involved going to British Columbia provincial government and applying for a cannabis retail license to operate at the area. And that process itself has been along the process, but we’re now reaching the point where we’ve gotten our provincial approval on the store, where everything from our personal backgrounds to the floor plan of the store, our personal finances has all been approved. And now we’re at the stage where it’s up to the City of Prince George and the city council specifically, to do a public hearing on our store and to ensure that it meets all regulatory compliance before being, getting our final green light to actually build this.
Rosenthal | It’s one thing to deal with a city in British Columbia or Ontario opening up a store, like there’s challenges along the way with the province, the feds and the municipality, and even the neighborhood layering on that. Another layer of regulatory environment that being in an airport that has Federally regulated, but has provincial oversight, but also has a city council that has some purview. Do you think both the company, but also travelers, the response will be once you guys are open? Is there a parallel that, or if people have been sort of contacting me, like this is the best idea since sliced bread.
Reed | We’ve definitely received a lot of positive feedback from people all across the travel and cannabis industry ranging from an individual who has used cannabis before and has had to smuggle through security.
Our biggest goal is to open an open this first store, just to see the demand in the market for a concept like this. I think it’s one thing to hear people, you know, sounding excited about it on social media, asking if they’ll purchase products here. But our biggest goal is to prove this out and to test out the two different models. We’re thinking about the first being a go to a store, purchase a product and then consume before traveling discreetly and the second being more of like a duty-free store when someone is traveling and they’re looking for a place to buy cannabis that’s convenient, accessible and perhaps less intimidating than going to a downtown retail store and where they can shop at Copilot.
Our goal is just to promote a safe and simple cannabis retail experience. We recognize that an airport is a really special platform to introduce our brand to travelers, but also just to help continue the process of democratizing and professionalizing the cannabis industry. So we’re excited for that opportunity and to introduce Copilot to travelers in British Columbia, but hopefully beyond.
Owen | People’s guards are down and maybe open to new experiences. The thinking around copilot is we need to make it an inviting space because people may, this may be their first time in a cannabis store either.
