Judge blasts cops’ failure to shut pot stores
An Ottawa judge has blasted the police force for failing to shut down the city’s illegal marijuana dispensaries.
Justice Norman Boxall said Friday he can’t understand why it’s so difficult to close shops that operate openly on major streets.
“I just don’t understand how the police cannot shut down a dispensary where the person has a big sign up, as I drive down Rideau Street, that says ‘marijuana dispensary.’ They brag about it on the internet that they are selling it.
“Yet I expect those same police officers to be able to arrest drug dealers who use encrypted BlackBerrys and coded language. How are they ever going to arrest most types of criminals if they can’t (shut down the shops)?” he asked.
Boxall had before him a 21-yearold woman who was charged with drug trafficking when police raided the Rideau Street dispensary where she worked as a clerk. The former “budtender,” who suffers from severe anxiety, was shaking and crying. “I just want to apologize and just say I’ve learned my lesson,” said Selena Holder, who pleaded guilty. “I just want to continue with my life and save animals.”
Boxall spoke to Holder gently, assuring her the court did not want to dash her dreams of taking a vet technician course. “You can’t change what you did, but you do have control over your future.”
Her sentencing was put over until January.
Holder, in a previous interview, told the Citizen she took the $12-an-hour job because she was struggling to pay her rent and believed the pot shop was operating in a legal “grey area.”
A spokesperson for Ottawa police said the force would not comment on Boxall’s remarks.
Police have conducted multiple raids on dispensaries, but many just reopen. In previous interviews, police officials have said they have limited resources, and drug investigations take time — points that were made in court Friday by the Crown prosecutor.
Boxall was skeptical. “What does that show about the respect for the law when the police say, ‘I don’t have the resources to shut down organized criminals who can afford companies and so on ...
“I’d like to hear a police officer come in front (of me) and explain to me why the Ottawa police doesn’t have the resources, out of their big squad, to arrest people (when) they say it’s a serious problem, people selling kilos of marijuana for profit?”
Boxall said if someone set up a shop selling cocaine, or illegal cigarettes or alcohol, it would be shut down immediately.
Boxall also questioned why police don’t go after the stores’ landlords. “Why don’t we go after the big guys?”
While many of the arrests in Ottawa have been of budtenders in their 20s, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada says some owners and managers have also been charged.
Ottawa police have sent letters to landlords warning them against allowing illegal activity on their premises, with limited success. There are now about 20 dispensaries in the city. jmiller@postmedia.com twitter.com/JacquieAMiller