Not a dispensary, for now

Kelowna's newest coffee shop is not a cannabis dispensary. At least not yet.

The Doja Culture Cafe held an opening party at their new Bernard Avenue location Thursday, and while the cafe serves just coffee and food for now, things may change in the future.

“It's basically a coffee shop and it's also a secondary arm of our facility in West Kelowna that's cultivating legal cannabis for Health Canada,” said Ria Kitsch, vice president of Doja.

Currently, the coffee shop sells a small selection of bongs, pipes, rolling papers and apparel, in addition to coffee and food.

As marijuana dispensaries are currently illegal to operate in Canada, Kitsch emphasized Doja is not a dispensary, but she and her husband Trent are waiting to see how things fall into place as the federal government works towards legalizing the much-maligned plant.

Legalization is expected to occur federally in July 2018.

“We're totally just open to whatever the government says, so if we can (sell cannabis), absolutely, that would be awesome, but if we can't and it's in the some other channel that's not managed independently, then that's what we'll do,” Kitsch said. “But we think that if people have a place that's like (where) you can go and have a drink somewhere, you could go and enjoy your cannabis somewhere, that'd be probably the future.”

The City of Kelowna has hinted it will not want dispensaries to operate in the downtown core once cannabis is legalized.

“We've been in contact with the city a lot and they're very much trying to ensure that we're not a dispensary,” Kitsch said. “I think they've had experiences where people say, 'oh we're not going to,' and then they do, so we're really trying to show and build the trust with the city, which we have through our other businesses.”

The Kitschs also own Kitsch Wines in East Kelowna and the Kitsch Construction and Development Company. Trent Kitsch also founded SAXX Underwear, and has since sold the company.

Ria Kitsch says they are hoping to push back against the long-standing stigma that comes with cannabis use.

“There's a lot of people who use cannabis who are super high achievers, for a lot of people it balances their life out in some way,” she said. “It shouldn't be any different than having a glass of wine at the end of the day.”