Trays of newly introduced mother plants at the Aurora Sky facility on February 5, 2018 at the Edmonton International Airport. Shaughn Butts / Postmedia
By GRAHAM HICKS
(Second of a three-part series on the ramifications of legal pot)
Welcome to the green gold rush.
In just a few months, Canada will be the first developed country in the world to fully legalize the growth, distribution and consumption of all cannabis products.
A Deloitte study suggests recreational marijuana sales alone could be as high as $8.7 billion per year in Canada – like the sale of all alcoholic beverages (besides beer), and that’s just a start. Add all the support business (security, transport, processing, research) and the potential economic impact “approaches $23 billion.”
Everybody’s speculating in this market which, other than medical marijuana, has yet to sell a penny of government-approved pot.
The numbers around Aurora Cannabis, soon moving its headquarters from V ...
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JOEY's signature lettuce wrap is a delicious, nutritious starter. GRAHAM HICKS/EDMONTON SUN
JOEY Bell Tower
10310 101 St.
780-990-5639
Joeyrestaurants.com
11 a.m. to 1 a.m. seven days a week (Sundays, 11 a.m. to midnight)
No advertised delivery
Food: 3.5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two, excluding beverage and tip: Basic $50, loaded $80
By GRAHAM HICKS
They remain the best of breed.
Nobody does casual, up-scale and comfortable like the four JOEY restaurants in town. Of the four, the downtown JOEY Bell Tower gets extra marks as the latest and most chic.
Nobody else … other than Earls (six locations in town, the flagship being Earls Tin Palace) and Cactus Club (two locations): They may have different “brands” and slightly differing ownership, but all three chains have more-or-less the same menus and the same commitment to quality.
The three restaurant groups are intertwined, owned or influenced as they are by th ...
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File.Getty Images
By GRAHAM HICKS
Baby, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
Pot – marijuana, cannabis – will be legalized in Canada in a matter of months.
Over a few pints of our current mood-altering drug of choice, the old guys’ drinking club was discussing whether we’d try pot again, once it was legal. In the late ‘60s, we took a toke or two … maybe a thousand. But that was 40 years ago!
To a one, we said no thanks, not at this point in our lives.
Nathan Mison, VP of stakeholder relations for the Edmonton-based future marijuana retailer Fire & Flower, gives a wry chuckle.
Mison’s point?
The unwashed Canadian public hasn’t the least notion how wide-ranging the uses, and choices, of recreational, medical and therapeutic cannabis will be.
“Let’s start with two active cannabis ingredients, CBD – cannabidiol oil – and THC – tetrahydrocannabinol,” says Nathan. “THC gets you ...
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The paella at Bodega 124th Street is packed with the freshest of seafood.
Bodega Tapas & Wine Bar on 124th Street
12417 Stony Plain Rd.
780-250-6066
bodegayeg.ca/124
11 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week (1 a.m. Friday and Saturday)
Food: 4 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two, excluding beverage and tip: Basic $50, loaded $80
By GRAHAM HICKS
There’s always room for another (good) restaurant.
Ten years ago, on or close to 124 Street, from Jasper Avenue to 108 Avenue, perhaps three restaurants were around of any quality.
Today, there’s 20 or more.
Yet good new restaurants in the area still quickly fill.
The Bodega/Sabor/Urbano Pizza restaurant group, headed by executive chef Lino Oliveira and operations man Christian Mena, has opened its third Bodega tapas bar, Bodega 124th Street.
Bodega 124th Street is every bit as interesting, tasty and unusual as Bodega Downtown (sharing space with the seafood-specialty Sabor) and ...
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ATB Financial president Dave Mowat.Codie McLachlan / Codie McLachlan/Edmonton Sun
By GRAHAM HICKS
Dave Mowat has been ATB Financial’s CEO and President since 2007. Retiring in June, Mowat is unarguably Alberta’s best-known and most visible CEO.
Mowat is that rarest of beasts: A well-liked, amiable, even humble corporate and community leader, yet likely the most dynamic CEO that ATB, a venerable government-owned financial institution, has ever seen.
ATB Financial’s marketing department took advantage of Mowat’s media-friendly personality. His smiling mug advertised ATB’s services in newspapers, billboards, TV and all over social media.
Who can forget Dave smiling at the camera, pointing his finger and saying “Who banks on Alberta’s future? We Do!”
Most of ATB Financial’s excellent long-term performance (from $20.3 billion in assets in 2007 to $49.6 billion in 2018, from 600,000 to 750,000 customers, currently 5,000 employ ...
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Corso 32's chicken skin is both crisp and balsamic in a pomegranate sauce. GRAHAM HICKS/ EDMONTON SUNEdmonton
Corso 32
10305 Jasper Ave.
780-421-4622
corso32.com
5 p.m. to 10 p.m. seven days a week (11 p.m. Friday and Saturday)
No advertised delivery service
Food: 5 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 3 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two, excluding beverage and tip: Basic $60, loaded $120
By GRAHAM HICKS
This is Corso 32’s third Weekly Dish review in the Edmonton Sun, both the restaurant and this column having debuted in 2011.
In a remarkable tribute to hands-on executive chef and owner Daniel Costa, for the third time the Weekly Dish has awarded Corso 32 with an unprecedented five out of five Suns for its food.
Believe me, there has been no special treatment. Reservations are made through regular channels months in advance, under a different name. The bill is presented and paid in full. I barely know Costa. He barely knows me.
Yet, after another perfect re ...
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Stacks from the Petro-Canada Refinery rise above the Enbridge Oil Tank Farm in Sherwood Park, Ab.Colleen De Neve / Calgary Herald, file
By GRAHAM HICKS
There will be no dramatic cleaning out of Enbridge or TransCanada’s Calgary corporate headquarters, no fleet of moving vans heading down the American I-25 highway in a near straight line from Calgary through Denver to Houston.
But until Canadian governments realize wealth creation is as important as the environment, gender imbalance and social justice, Alberta’s major pipeline building companies will slip-slide away to the U.S.
It won’t be dramatic. It never is. Corporations don’t want bad-news headlines.
But Enbridge and TransCanada build pipelines.
Major pipelines are not being built in Canada.
Pipelines are being built in the U.S.
Funny thing about doing business. You go where the work is.
Both TransCanada and Enbridge are going where the work is, via major acquisitions.
In 2016, TransCan ...
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Koutouki's sliced lamb needed more flavour and juices. Photos by GRAHAM HICKS/EDMONTONSUN
Koutouki
10719 124 St.
780-452-5383
koutouki.ca
4 p.m. to 10 p.m. (Friday and Saturday, 11 p.m., Sunday 9 p.m.)
Closed Monday
Delivery: doordash.com
Food: 3 of 5 Suns
Ambience: 4 of 5 Suns
Service: 4 of 5 Suns
Dinner for two, excluding beverage and tip: Basic $50, loaded $90
By GRAHAM HICKS
Have you ever had a restaurant meal that was just a meal?
As the dishes arrived, they were okay, okay, okay, not bad, chewy: When you left, you had a hard time remembering just what you ate.
So it is with the current Koutouki Greek Taverna on 124 Street.
It’s not-bad, generic Greek cooking in a cheerful Greek atmosphere.
The atmosphere is fun. But the food, as far as Greek cooking goes, is ultimately bland, certainly nothing to write home about.
And the fact is it is still called Koutouki.
The larger-than-life Yanni Psalios made his Koutouki Taverns (he opened and closed them at the d ...
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Invitation to join the "Edmonton Camino", a five-day walking expedition up the North Saskatchewan River valley from Devon through Edmonton to Fort Saskatchewan/Lamoureux, June 15 to June 19, 2018
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A decommissioned pumpjack is shown at a well head on an oil and gas installation near Cremona, Alta.Jeff McIntosh / The Canadian Press
By GRAHAM HICKS
As pipelines are stalled, as Canadian regulations overwhelm, as federal/Alberta corporate taxes increase, as “climate challenge” costs (i.e. carbon tax) mount up … Edmonton energy companies are slip-sliding away to the more business-friendly USA.
It’s business, says Hi-Kalibre Equipment boss Patrick Rabby. His company, in a southeast Edmonton industrial park, employs 100 workers, manufacturing specialty anti-blow-out valves for drilling rigs.
The energy business in Canada is down. The energy business in the U.S. is booming.
In Canada, stymied by environmental extremists, bottlenecks in the pipeline system are not being addressed.
In the U.S., pipeline bottlenecks are being addressed.
In Canada, stymied by environmental extremists and over-regulation, liquefied natural gas (LNG) ports to export natural gas are ...
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