The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday, March 5, edition that Canopy Growth plans to close two massive greenhouses in British Columbia and lay off 500 employees. The Globe's Mark Rendell writes that the moves are expected to result in a pretax charge of between $700-million and $800-million. Canopy acquired an interest in the two greenhouses in 2017, as part of a joint venture with an established agricultural company. The greenhouses have a combined growing space of about three million square feet. Canopy agreed to pay $374-million in 2018 to buy out its partner and acquire full control of the greenhouses. The transaction was part of a flurry of activity in the lead-up to the legalization of recreational marijuana in the fall of 2018, as licensed producers raced to buy and retrofit greenhouses and warehouses in an attempt to boost their "licensed capacity." Many of these facilities have since been shuttered, as legal cannabis sales in Canada failed to live up to expectations, due to thriving black-market competition and a slow rollout of retail stores. Canopy also said on Wednesday that it no longer plans to bring an additional greenhouse into production at its facility in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.