Store Highlight: Star Buds Cannabis Co.

Innisfil is a small but fast-growing city of 44,000 near Barrie in Southern Ontario cottage country. Its proximity to Lake Simcoe attracts visitors all year round thanks to the many hiking, snowmobiling, ATVing and fishing opportunities.

Setting up shop there was part of owner Stew Garner’s vision for serving high-quality cannabis in Simcoe County in a friendly and welcoming way. “We wanted to concentrate [on] one area where we could be the leader in cannabis retail,” says Garner, president of Star Buds Ontario, a small chain of eight cannabis retail stores in the province.

He’s opened cannabis shops in several spots around the Simcoe County region, with the Innisfil location opening in 2020. “Having grown up in the area gave us a head start on finding excellent locations, and Innisfil was no different,” Garner says.

During its first year of business, Star Buds was the only Authorized Cannabis Store in town, says Harry Lewis, the Innisfil store manager. That helped them get a jump start on growing roots in the community and building a rapport with the locals.

“Our customers have been a huge driving force for us to discover what our store identity needed to be,” says Lewis. “That identity turned out to be ‘only the best.’”

The store’s design — wood shelving, calming lighting and various product displays — paired with the expertise of the store’s budtenders creates a welcoming atmosphere for customers, many of whom are seniors or nearing retirement age.

Lewis says older adults often have more questions and need more education and advice, which is why he stresses in-depth budtender education. He also highlights the importance of remembering the roots of cannabis and how they apply to senior customers. “Even though recreational cannabis has been legal for six years, there’s an extra level of customer service that goes into making our customers comfortable in our store.”

Harry Lewis

Manager, Star Buds Cannabis Co., Innisfil, Ont.

“Our customers have been a huge driving force for us to discover what our store identity needed to be.” 

“All of our budtenders are experts in cannabis and trained to help every type of cannabis customer,” Lewis says. He takes a hands-on approach to training, allowing time for budtenders to learn about cannabis on the job and working with Licensed Producers (LPs) to present and explain their products. “These are very insightful looks into the way LPs go about producing the products we sell day to day.”

“Whether it's researching what CBC or other minor cannabinoids can do for you or learning the history of a legacy strain or staying up to date on the newest legislative changes, our budtenders focus on being the best possible resources they can be for our customers,” Lewis says. 

He loves opportunities to put that education into action, especially with older customers venturing into cannabis for the first time. He recalls a woman and her adult son coming to the store to find something they could smoke together on his birthday. Her curiosity about cannabis had been piqued following legalization, Lewis says, so her son brought her to Star Buds to get information and find something suitable they could both enjoy. 

“It reminded me of the joy I had at being able to share my passion for cannabis with my mom for the first time,” he says. “Any time we get to bring people together with cannabis, those customer interactions feel a little extra special.”

Being a trusted resource for cannabis information in the community means staff take extra care when selecting inventory. Because of the explosion of cannabis products on the Canadian market since recreational legalization, Star Buds works hard to ensure they’re stocking a diversity of high-quality dried flower, pre-rolls, oils, edibles and other items.

Lewis says Innisfil shoppers particularly enjoy smoking cannabis. Some of the more popular pre-rolls Star Buds stocks are ones made by Jeeter, which specializes in THCA diamond-infused pre-rolls.

SHOP DIAMONDS

The amount and types of packaging used for pre-rolls and other cannabis products have long been a concern for Lewis and his colleagues. Innisfil’s proximity to Lake Simcoe and other natural areas is a major draw for environmentally minded folks, so Lewis says Star Buds jumped at the chance to participate in the Purple Bin Program.

The free program, operated by craft cannabis company Purple Hills, has already placed collector bins in more than 800 cannabis stores across Ontario and collected more than 6,000 kg of containers, plastic bags, empty vape cartridges and cannabis e-waste since launching at the start of 2024. Lewis says customers of the Star Buds’ Innisfil store alone have so far returned upwards of 90 kg of material that would have otherwise ended up in landfill. It’s just one more way Star Buds and its staff drive community connections around cannabis.

Don’t live near a Star Buds Cannabis Co. location? Use the OCS Store Locator to find an Authorized Cannabis Store near you.
 

Store Highlight features Authorized Cannabis Stores that apply to participate as part of the quarterly OCS Content Call process. If you are interested in having your store featured, find out how on OCS Wholesale Learn.