Man pleads guilty to running illegal Welland pot shop

After police raided the Green Light District in Welland in April 2019, the operator spoke to a Welland Tribune reporter and claimed he didn’t commit any crimes because his store’s inventory was limited to hemp products, pipes, bongs and rolling papers.

Joseph Pawlick maintained the only items seized by police from his Fitch Street plaza store were bath bombs that did not contain THC or CBD, the active ingredients in cannabis.

“There was never anything illegally sold out of the store,” he told the reporter.

But in an Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines on Friday, the man who claimed the store never operated as a cannabis dispensary pleaded guilty to several charges related to operating an illegal cannabis dispensary.

In March 2019, court heard, the OPP’S provincial joint forces cannabis enforcement team began investigating the Green Light District and an online dispensary called Canna Niagara.

An undercover police officer placed an online order in April, and the delivery driver told him he’d already made 20 deliveries that day. Investigators tailed the driver, and watched as an additional 11 deliveries were made. Police executed warrants later that month at the Green Light District. Pawlick was arrested inside the store.

Warrants were also executed at a commercial building on King Street and a residence on Spruce Avenue, both in Welland.

Court was told the King Street location was used as a distribution centre.

Federal prosecutor Michelle Colacarro told the judge the items seized as a result of the investigation included $ 300,000 in marijuana, $36,000 in hash, $32,000 in shatter (a brittle marijuana concentrate), $60,000 in marijuana edibles, $3,300 in cocaine and more than $70,000 in cash.

Defence counsel Jeffrey Root said his client agreed to the facts read in by the Crown, but disputed the monetary value of the items seized.

Pawlick also pleaded guilty to charges involving the sale of fentanyl and cocaine in Niagara stemming from a 2017 investigation.

The 30-year-old is scheduled to return to court in January for sentencing.