Tokyo smoke is closing 29 of its 196 locations and restructuring its business professor Bradley pulus says he saw it coming not surprised at all we've been in the middle of a ShakeOut in the retail space in cannabis and Canada for several years Tokyo smoke is one of those companies that decided out of the gate to go with kind of larger more Swanky stores certainly spent a lot more money on their stores than the average retailer did and we've since seen that that's not really needed dope brand senior consultant Abby roach says this is a wakeup call for many companies once LED in by the promise of Canada's booming cannabis Market cannabis is a business just like any other and then on top of it it has extra layers of overregulation and over taxation they're not allowed to Market they're not allowed to have open Windows you're not allowed to really have uh an exciting shopping environment so really the only thing that there is to compete on is priced in a statement Tokyo smoke says it has been forced to restructure because of current market and Regulatory conditions which they say have changed significantly since the company was first licensed now in spite of all these challenges industry Watchers are quite optimistic they expect that we'll see those regulations start easing up open Windows new marketing rules and yes maybe fewer players now the companies that do survive can then focus on product variety and profits instead of simply trying to outdo it each other on pricing it's a very exciting industry and it came from nothing that doesn't happen very often ultimately we'll have a mature industry it'll have lots of profitable players and Canada will be one of the big cannabis players globally as entrepreneurs innovate within the regulations that they're allotted they're going to be able to push the framework a little bit further and make sure that in the next 10 years we have a really vibrant cannabis retail Market in Canada Nang Global News Toronto