Smiths Falls, Ontario \u2013 population 8,885 \u2013 is seeing a revival of fortunes since medical marijuana producer Tweed Inc. set up shop over 4 years ago in an abandoned Hershey Co. chocolate factory. The company, since renamed Canopy Growth Corp., has become the world\u2019s largest publicly traded cannabis producer and is the town\u2019s largest private-sector employer.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re recognized as the pot capital of Canada \u2013 and we\u2019re proud of that,\u201d Mayor Shawn Pankow said in an interview with Bloomberg. \u201cThe local economy is certainly far better today than it was before Tweed came to town.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smiths Falls is on the rebound, with more younger people relocating to this town 75 kilometres southwest of the capital in Ottawa. There\u2019s renewed interest in commercial property, new businesses are arriving, and there\u2019s even the odd bidding war on homes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing positive impacts really across the economy,\u201d said Pankow, 52, who also runs a financial advisory firm. \u201cPeople are recognizing that Smiths Falls is a community that\u2019s on the upswing.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Canopy has since become one of the darlings of the Canada\u2019s benchmark stock exchange. It\u2019s the S&P\/TSX Composite Index\u2019s best performer in 2017, with pot stocks surging ahead of legalization.<\/p>\n
Tweed took over a former Hershey factory with ambitious plans to grow medical marijuana. Today, the firm has 360 employees \u2013 a well-educated workforce that runs the administration, research, growing operations, packaging, and shipping from the facility that still has signage and other remnants of its chocolate past. Construction crews hammer away on the next expansion. The parking lot is packed.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmiths Falls welcomed us and we appreciated that,\u201d said Chief Executive Officer Bruce Linton, who says he\u2019s tapping local labour, suppliers, and businesses as much as possible as the business gears up for the legalization of marijuana in Canada next summer. \u201cThe effect is the town becomes more desirable, and as it becomes more desirable my ability to recruit people who are senior or worldly increases.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a stark contrast from a decade ago, when Smiths Falls faced an industry exodus with the shutdown of a Stanley Tools Manufacturing facility and a shuttering of the Hershey plant. That followed months later by the closure of the Rideau Regional Centre for the developmentally disabled. The closures affected more than 1,500 people \u2013 one-fifth the population at the time.<\/p>\n
Smiths Falls has faced ebbs and flows of industry throughout its history, stemming back about 190 years when crews came to build the Rideau Canal connecting Ottawa with Kingston. Decades later, the Canadian Pacific Railway arrived to provide a rail connection to the outside world, helping support commerce.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a town that constantly reinvents itself,\u201d according to Leisa Purdonbell, who oversees the historical collections in the basement of an 1860s-era house that doubles as a museum. \u201cBusinesses have come and gone.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nRelated stories:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Smiths Falls, Ontario \u2013 population 8,885 \u2013 is seeing a revival of fortunes since medical marijuana producer Tweed Inc. set up shop over 4 years ago in an abandoned Hershey Co. chocolate factory. The company, since renamed Canopy Growth Corp., has become the world\u2019s largest publicly traded cannabis producer and is the town\u2019s largest private-sector […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":20326,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20838,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7627\/revisions\/20838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canadianrealestatemagazine.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}