Cannabis restaurant opens in downtown Edmonton

A restaurant offering cannabis-infused products is opening its doors to customers.

The restaurant in downtown Edmonton – CBD CBN – is a dream come true for co-owners Stacey Mison and James Mulholland.

Patrons can enjoy a night out while learning about cannabis-infused food and mocktails.

“Really our main focus is not necessarily in getting people intoxicated, but showing people the flavours of the plant and everything it can be,” said Mulholland, who’s also the bartender.

The entrepreneurs are the first business of their kind to receive a Health Canada licence allowing them to research the impacts of cannabis.

“With the research licence we get to show what you can do with cannabis more just than smoking it,” said Mison, the restaurant’s chef.

“We’ve been working to get this space up and running for a few months.”

The co-owners say great strides have been made over the last five years since recreational marijuana use was legalized in Canada Oct. 17, 2018.

“When legalization happened, people were concerned about DUIs going up, crime going up, people just being stoned, zombies going through the streets and it hasn’t been that,” said Mulholland.

Mison says education and providing Edmontonians with a safe place to try cannabis is important.

She adds more needs to be done to show what these types of businesses can do for the economy. She feels the city’s proposed zoning by-law changes, which would make room for cannabis lounges or cafés in the event the province or federal government changes legislation, will help pave the way for more businesses like CBD CBN.

City councillor Michael Janz wants to see Edmonton become a pot tourism destination in Canada, and a leader in cannabis business opportunities and innovation.

“It’s all at the steps of the legislature,” said Janz, the councillor for Ward papastew. “It’s all up to Premier Smith and the government. If they want to be open for business on cannabis, they can make regulatory changes tomorrow that would allow kitchens like this, cafés, restaurants, massage therapists who want to experiment with THC or CBD or whatever, to do that.”

Mison believes the opening of CBD CDN is a huge step in the right direction.

“It allows for education,” she said. “It allows for conversations. It allows a place for people to gather, have the conversations that haven’t been happening so we can keep moving forward and show the rest of the world as more of the world becomes legal that this is what we can be doing and this is the way forward.”