Pubdate: Sat, 04 Jun 2016
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Page: A21
Copyright: 2016 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477

A CITY-MADE POT FIGHT

There is no grey area for pot shops selling marijuana for recreational
purposes. Trafficking in drugs, including marijuana, is a criminal
offence in Canada and will remain so until the federal government
legalizes pot in some fashion, as it has promised to do next year.

Providing medical grade cannabis to real patients with real
prescriptions from real doctors is permissible, of course, but the
fiction that these pop-up pot shops are medical clinics dispensing
health services is just that - a fiction.

So the City of Vancouver is quite right to try to shut them down.
However, the flouting of the law by owners of these shops, and their
arrogant defiance while doing so, shows it was wrong to have allowed
them to proliferate in the first place.

Rather than order the police to arrest the pushers, the Vision-led
city council decided last year to shore up its progressive credentials
by establishing a new category of business licence to regulate the
mushrooming marijuana businesses, granting legitimacy to an illegal
activity.

Marijuana shops not in compliance with the new regulations and
refusing to shut down were issued $61,000 in violation tickets, nearly
all of which remain unpaid. They were ordered to close up shop by the
end of May. They ignored the order.

Here's where it gets silly. Because there is now a regulatory regime
in place and some pot shops have been licensed, the city couldn't
simply send in the cops. It has filed application for court
injunctions to compel the non-compliant shops to close. Many owners
say they will ignore injunctions and look forward to their day in court.

In fact, one pot shop owner says he's filed for a judicial review with
B.C. Supreme Court to set aside the city order to shut down.

Does anyone see the absurdity of someone selling an illegal product
going to court to win the right to continue to break the law? Next we
can expect a constitutional challenge that the order to shut down is
discriminatory.

Pot activist Jodie Emery said she won't be shutting her Cannabis
Culture shop on Beatty Street, noting that "legalization for all use
is just around the corner."

And that's the point. Legalization is still around the corner; it's
not here yet.

City bylaws do not trump Canadian laws. Establishing a regulatory
regime for illegal businesses was a bone-headed decision that has
created a legal imbroglio that promises to tie up the courts and cost
taxpayers a bundle.  
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D