MMPR Grow op: Small Scale
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redi jedi
Well-Known Member
Beats me? I'm not even sure what kind of insurance a small business of this type would need?
There is NO mention of insurance anywhere, in any file, ever posted by HC. If there is and I have not seen it, please post it....
The only insurance maybe worthwhile holding would be a crop insurance. This costs varies significantly depending on your setup. ie: indoor/greenhouse, backup generator? location ect... The insurance companies have lots of questions before they give you a price. Those guys spend money on statisticians... lol
redi jedi
Well-Known Member
Maybe liability? In case someone tries to sue from a negative experience?
This may be an insurance you would want to hold, but NOT required by HC.
If someone has an adverse reaction to your product, you must file an adverse reaction case report with HC within 15 days of being informed of the adverse reaction. This is all HC requires.
If you get sued by the client for the reaction, you may have to pay or go bankrupt depending on the courts decision for awarding damages.
However, HC does not require you to hold any liability insurance (from what I have seen) That being said, probably a good idea to be covered...
redi jedi
Well-Known Member
lol...that should be an interesting conversation.
Gquebed
Well-Known Member
Well that, yes, but first would be liability insurance, which will be mandatory as it is for any business. You would want to protect yourself against any lawsuits from people that might claim to suffer ill effects from the medicine. The dispensary would likely be sued first in a situation like that, but any good lawyer would extend the suit to the producer as well, if the dispensary didn't. Then... because pharmaceutical dispensaries are prime targets for theft they pay a higher premium for that than others and given that this marijuana business has had close ties to organized crime I can see insurance agencies charging through the nose for the perceived higher threat of theft. Comprehensive insurance on the building, which may be built into a lease, would want a higher premium for the risk of fire, as is the case in any business that runs a higher risk of fire. Then all the usual stuff... But the biggest thing would be liability, which in a new industry runs much higher risks than in established ones that have already established litigation precedents.
Gquebed
Well-Known Member
By this it is very obvious that you have little or no business experience. HC won't make insurance a requirement because that is simply not their department. That will be dictated by the municipality that you run your business in. Insurance will be required to get a business license. Period. PLUS if a bank is involved with a loan then they will want you insured to the max, just like when you finance a car. HC will only be one regulatory body that you will have to deal with. This is why you need to talk to a lawyer FIRST. After that first visit you will have a million more questions...
Gquebed
Well-Known Member
Man... this is a business now. You can't just go get a license from HC, buy a few lights and start your plants. There's a shit load of officials that you'll have to deal with aside from HC. Different levels of government. Has anyone even thought of what a business license will cost for an operation like this? It will vary from city to city, but it's not cheap either. WCB insurance for your employees? Property tax? Does anybody know why you would want to incorporate instead of operating as a sole proprietorship? All of these costs have to considered...and when they are $250K to start suddenly seems like nothing. But again...anyone considering this better see a lawyer first, because if you don't and you forget one regulatory body to comply with... it will be an excuse to rescind your HC license...and this is one industry that will be watched very very closely. That much should be obvious...at least.
maximum
Active Member
How much do you think that the insurance is going to cost annually? On a small 2000 square foot greenhouse for example.
Kootenaygirl
Active Member
I did go to my insurance broker about 2 months ago and she already had companies that would insure me. What we found was that in the fine print the insurance covered very little. No theft, no crop insurance, no water damage, really all it covered was the building and liability. The insurance was expensive, we insure this building, (empty) now for about 300 per year ( not exact because it is tied to our home insurance currently). We would expect the same building to cost with a business over 5000 per year up and running. The building we have is about 3000 sqft and not a greenhouse.
Business licences here are sold without proof of insurance or anything else.
So far our business plan has cost us minimal, legwork expenses and allot of time.
We decided to incorporate because we believe that if you don't increase the size of your facility with the market you will go bankrupt. In other words we think LP's will need to keep getting bigger and bigger, corporations = big.
Our biggest hurdle, by far, is zoning. We have spent over $2000 and will know our fate in July. This has been hard and we pity anybody who is trying this. We live in a marihuana friendly area and we think it would have been impossible for us to get our zoning with any less support. We were also lucky that our municipality was on these new regs and trying to get ahead of it early on.
There is no limits to the amount of LP's HC will licence. This is stated clearly under frequently asked questions for LP's on the HC website.
If you look at the application to become a producer we cannot find any necessary requirements for the LP, SPIC, or the RPIC to have to provide or submit any qualifications. No specific, set qualifications for the QA person either.
What we have been finding is that everywhere we go, we are the best informed about the MMPR, including... Health Canada, insurance, municipality, police, fire, online, and media (with the exception of this forum). At this point I'll bet that we are more informed then 99% of the lawyers. Would anybody recommend an MMPR informed Lawyer?
Anybody have any thought on organizing ourselves pre and post licencing? We need a leader.
This forum has had little in the way of nay sayers, thankfully. Plenty of that almost everywhere else. It's just that it's so easy to be negative and you don't even have to read the regs first. It is a healthy thing for us all though, it tells us we are way ahead of the curve but to still watch our six. Keep reminding yourself at every hoop that others have given up right here. So bring on the hoops.(especially the cheaper ones) LOL
Business licences here are sold without proof of insurance or anything else.
So far our business plan has cost us minimal, legwork expenses and allot of time.
We decided to incorporate because we believe that if you don't increase the size of your facility with the market you will go bankrupt. In other words we think LP's will need to keep getting bigger and bigger, corporations = big.
Our biggest hurdle, by far, is zoning. We have spent over $2000 and will know our fate in July. This has been hard and we pity anybody who is trying this. We live in a marihuana friendly area and we think it would have been impossible for us to get our zoning with any less support. We were also lucky that our municipality was on these new regs and trying to get ahead of it early on.
There is no limits to the amount of LP's HC will licence. This is stated clearly under frequently asked questions for LP's on the HC website.
If you look at the application to become a producer we cannot find any necessary requirements for the LP, SPIC, or the RPIC to have to provide or submit any qualifications. No specific, set qualifications for the QA person either.
What we have been finding is that everywhere we go, we are the best informed about the MMPR, including... Health Canada, insurance, municipality, police, fire, online, and media (with the exception of this forum). At this point I'll bet that we are more informed then 99% of the lawyers. Would anybody recommend an MMPR informed Lawyer?
Anybody have any thought on organizing ourselves pre and post licencing? We need a leader.
This forum has had little in the way of nay sayers, thankfully. Plenty of that almost everywhere else. It's just that it's so easy to be negative and you don't even have to read the regs first. It is a healthy thing for us all though, it tells us we are way ahead of the curve but to still watch our six. Keep reminding yourself at every hoop that others have given up right here. So bring on the hoops.(especially the cheaper ones) LOL
BigBhuda
Well-Known Member
I agree that we need to get organized. The biggest (or first) obstacle right now to get the application in is the Quality Control report. We need to band together with one company or person familiar with the regulations to provide a quality control manual specific to marijuana. No one seems to want anything for free and seems willing to pay a fair price. In other industries you subscribe to these type of manuals on an annual basic and the author provides updates as required.
I don't know anyone that can create such a manual. If someone does then lets get formal and get at it. If we need to form an association and get a website, I may be able to help with that. Hopefully we could get an association going for $100 membership. We need a place on the web to bring together the trades and professionals with the people serious about becoming producers.
I don't know anyone that can create such a manual. If someone does then lets get formal and get at it. If we need to form an association and get a website, I may be able to help with that. Hopefully we could get an association going for $100 membership. We need a place on the web to bring together the trades and professionals with the people serious about becoming producers.
maximum
Active Member
The way I see it. Your ahead of lots of us at the moment. Your ahead of me too. You have the building. Your last post alone is a serious contribution to anyone that hasnt gotten this far. May I ask whats your experience with zoning, what happened there?
Regarding organizing ourselves, this would tie into what BigBhuda says about having a place where we are brought together. I think we will outgrow this thread. It will get hard to find all the info when its spread out into lots of pages and people have to skim through it constantly. Im ok with whatever you guys want.
Just throwing this out there. I can contribute hosting for a forum/site where we can be more organized and communicate. I can install a forum too. Servers/computers and things like forums are my original area of expertise. Before Cannabis I was in the tech industry for 10 years (15 if you count pre incorporation). Or we can use rollitup. Advantage here is that there is naturally lots of traffic here on rollitup. So if we had a site we would be re-directing people to is instead of the natural flow here. But a dedicated site for us, is good because nothing is lost and drowned out into later pages. We can have sections for everything from setup to our shared resources like the labs we want to use, etc... Either way Its no cost on my end to setup our own site. Domain names 10 bucks I can pick it up or someone else can and point it to our servers. I still buy dozens of domains every month so this is no issue at all. We can share admin access if we are part of our coop.
Does any of you have experience working with coops or something similar on a scale we are discussing?
Kootenaygirl
Active Member
We were the first plow truck through the rezoning in our area, waking almost everybody up to the new regs as we went. We were lucky that our senior planner was somewhat educated already. We're trying to get agricultural zoning for our acreage. We won't know till mid July about our zoning fate. Wish us luck.
BigBhuda
Well-Known Member
I don't think that we want to start out as a coop. I think that could evolve later after we have licenses in place if we wanted to join forces for distribution or lab work. For current purposes a non profit corporation would be a better fit. Looks like that costs about $500 to set up. We could start an informal web site and formalize later when we have enough committed members. I vote for www.calmproducers.ca
Kootenaygirl
Active Member
As this is about small scale grow ops in Canada and Canadian regulations can somebody please tell the SPELL CHECK that marihuana is canadian and is the same as marijuana which is american. end/rant
Just some organizational thoughts.
The Canadian Association of Licensed Marihuana Producers (CALMP) ? HERE TO...
-preserve the cottage industry that already exists.
-give small growers a voice Federally
-bring into the "white" as many current grey(mmar) and black market growers as possible
-provide assistance to members trying to navigate the LP's application and the MMPR
-facilitate LP owned testing options for members
-facilitate LP owned central website
-reduce the cost of insurance for LP's
-encourage and support proper clinical studies with medical marihuana and education of our doctors and nurses
-provide a platform for information sharing
-use our collective buying to reduce many LP costs. (boxes, labels, shipping, fans, nutrients, soil, bulbs, ballists, pumps, chilllers, insurance, cameras, etc.
-work towards realistic sized prescriptions
-encourage and support adding all the other uses of medicinal cannabis like creams, juice, and edibles, one by one with the necessary clinical testing
I don't think an organization/website like this runs itself or is cheap. Our dues to the BCLNA were based on gross sales per year.
Come'on somebody's gotta want this thankless fight for right. Could pay down the road. No dirt under your nails. No greenthumb required. Work from home. Be your own boss.
Just some organizational thoughts.
The Canadian Association of Licensed Marihuana Producers (CALMP) ? HERE TO...
-preserve the cottage industry that already exists.
-give small growers a voice Federally
-bring into the "white" as many current grey(mmar) and black market growers as possible
-provide assistance to members trying to navigate the LP's application and the MMPR
-facilitate LP owned testing options for members
-facilitate LP owned central website
-reduce the cost of insurance for LP's
-encourage and support proper clinical studies with medical marihuana and education of our doctors and nurses
-provide a platform for information sharing
-use our collective buying to reduce many LP costs. (boxes, labels, shipping, fans, nutrients, soil, bulbs, ballists, pumps, chilllers, insurance, cameras, etc.
-work towards realistic sized prescriptions
-encourage and support adding all the other uses of medicinal cannabis like creams, juice, and edibles, one by one with the necessary clinical testing
I don't think an organization/website like this runs itself or is cheap. Our dues to the BCLNA were based on gross sales per year.
Come'on somebody's gotta want this thankless fight for right. Could pay down the road. No dirt under your nails. No greenthumb required. Work from home. Be your own boss.
Kootenaygirl
Active Member
I like the way you think BigBhuda. I get it now CALM Producers, I was a post behind. I second www.calmproducers.ca.