44. The Régie shall not issue a grocery permit intended to be used in a grocery store forming part of a chain of stores including five stores or more.
Stores with multiple subsidiaries or branches and their subsidiaries and branches, whether or not the latter form separate legal entities, are considered a chain of stores. However, stores operated by various cooperatives are not a chain from the sole fact that these associations are members of the same federation.
The first paragraph does not apply if the permit applied for is intended to be used by a person who held a grocery permit on 1 August 1974 or by a partnership or a corporation for the benefit of which a permit was issued on that date.
1979, c. 71, s. 44; 1982, c. 26, s. 312.