By Bruce Corcoran
Chatham’s King Street’s a fertile place. Just ask the owners of Maple City Growers Emporium.
The store opened recently at 214 King Street, offering hydroponic and grow supplies for those with green thumbs.
The brainchild of Shawn Dauphin, Steve Wheeler and Geoff McLean, the emporium caters to legal cannabis growers, but it is not dovetailed to just one plant.
“Indoor or outdoor, whatever form of growing you do, we can accommodate,” Dauphin said. ““We can help you from cucumbers to cannabis. If you have an organic garden at home and you want to amend your soil and get more yield out of your garden, we can help you.”
But for cannabis growers, the emporium provides everything, right up to, but not including, the seeds.
“We provide all the fundamental resources for growing and cultivating. That’s growth support, space design; we can walk you through the process of germinating your seed all the way to harvesting and curing your cannabis. We’re here for support all the way through,” Dauphin said. “We carry everything but the plants.”
Dauphin said the trio has poured all its energy into this project.
“This is the right time,” he said.
And the right place.
“It’s amazing to be in downtown Chatham. I grew up in Chatham-Kent and ran these streets as a young kid. It’s nice to be here,” Dauphin said.
Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff sees no issues with having a company that is focused on a legal plant setting up shop downtown.
“I love businesses downtown. This is great for Chatham-Kent. We have 70-some-odd crops here. We can add one more. It’s something a lot of people do. A business like this makes a lot of sense for people who are doing it legally,” he said. “You get help growing your four plants. You do it right and this is the type of business that can help you out.”
