By Lara Fominoff (@LaraFominoff on Twitter)

Former bank turned cannabis store boasts after-hours pot “teller”

Nov 25, 2018 | 7:17 AM

LETHBRIDGE – A long-time local businessman who now owns a new cannabis store, boasts the city’s first after-hours “cannabis teller.” Think late-night gas station or pawn shop-type window exchange, complete with bullet-proof glass.

The building that Edward Pan’s store now occupies was formerly a bank at the corner of Mayor Magrath Drive and 5 Ave S. It’s been vacant for months and Pan came across it earlier in the year while looking for a space for a new cannabis store.

He says a lot of the features he needed were already built-in, including some of the counters, office space and a huge vault. But he struggled to figure out what to do with the space the ATM machine occupied.

While buying additional counters from the old Sears Department store at Park Place Mall, Pan asked his staff to come up with unique ideas on how to use the space. Several suggestions were made, until they narrowed down the concept.

“I thought, do we use this room for storage? Do we use this room for something else? Should we just seal the wall? And my thought was ‘gas station’ kind of quick.

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“With the bank ATM there’s a sliding gate door… when we looked at the possibilities, we thought safety first … and it was convenient. So that’s how we ended up with the ATM. And it was ideas thought up by our manager, our Southwest Construction team and me.”

To his knowledge, the cannabis “teller” concept is one of a kind in Lethbridge. When the store close at 10 p.m. staff close a large sliding glass door that separates the main portion from the “cannabis ATM” area. The portion with the “teller” then remains open until 2 a.m.

Pan says he wanted to cater to those who do shift work and others who might not be able to access the store during regular business hours.

The front of the structure itself is made up of bullet-proof glass about three inches thick. Like the bank that occupied the space prior, a customer can open the front doors, walk in to a narrow area cordoned off by the large sliding glass door. They can then choose the product they want or the accessories they’d like from a menu and display. Two people work in the after-hours space at all times, and after the product is paid for, it’s placed into a box that will only allow one door to open at at a time. Once staff place the product into the glass box, the customer can then open the other side and retrieve it.

A vault is also contained in the room where the workers are, along with cameras to record everyone that comes and goes, and other security features including a panic-button. Construction on the room isn’t quite complete, and several other features, like shelving for additional products will be added in the coming days.

Pan grew up in Lethbridge and owns several businesses including a Chinese restaurant near downtown. He decided to go into the cannabis business after reading about the number of licenses the provincial government was willing to approve – provided certain conditions were met. He took it as a challenge and began looking for spaces across the city. 

He is hoping his concept catches on, but also acknowledges that the store can and will change over time.

“This store is fluid. We want a friendly atmosphere. Everything changes, but we’re open to it.