From The Globe and Mail.
A company that specializes in growing strawberries, lettuce and marijuana using new technologies was set last fall to take over a failed vertical-garden enterprise in a downtown Vancouver parkade.
But the city first demanded a promise that there would be no marijuana grown, and eventually declined to transfer the original lease of the failed company.
Now Clay Haeber, a man who was involved with the failed company, is suing the City of Vancouver for the $1.4-million he says he lost when the city wouldn’t transfer the lease.
And the board chairman of Affinor Growers Inc., the new company that wanted to take over and create a demonstration project of new growing techniques, says Vancouver lost out on a bold idea.
“We were going to invest $2.5-million. We offered to pay all the rent in advance. There was no risk,” said Nick Brusatore, the executive chair of Affinor.
Mr. Brusatore says he got his start in the new-agriculture business in 2000, after Canada amended its laws for medical marijuana, by producing home marijuana-growing kits that he called the “power-grow system.”
He is frequently identified on his websites as the former chair of the applied research and innovation centre advisory committee at the B.C. Institute of Technology.
Affinor’s website advertises the company like this: “Affinor Growers is focused on mass producing, high quality, in-demand produce and pharmacy-grade plants for global distribution.”
The team is currently working towards becoming a grower of premier Medical Marihuana and set to produce other major cash crops such as Romaine Lettuce and Strawberries while waiting for Health Canada licenses and approvals.”
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