Crown seeking jail time for owners of Waterloo marijuana store

KITCHENER — The Crown will be seeking jail sentences for the owners of a Waterloo marijuana store charged after a police raid last summer.

Nour Louka, 30, pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking. Her husband, Shady Louka, 31, pleaded guilty to careless storage of a 9 mm Glock handgun.

They both face a string of other charges, including additional counts of possession of marijuana for the purpose of trafficking, after police raided their Waterloo Dispensary store on King Street North in uptown Waterloo last August.

Each pleaded guilty to one count on Thursday “just to get the ball rolling,” federal prosecutor Kathleen Nolan said.

“For the record, that doesn’t preclude the possibility that there will be more counts pled to on the next occasion and doesn’t mean that all the other counts that are not pled to today will be withdrawn,” she said.

Nolan said the Crown’s position on the sentence is “much different” than the position taken by the defence. Sean Safa represents Shady Louka; Paul Lewin represents Nour Louka.

“The Crown will be seeking jail, and the defence will not be seeking jail,” Nolan said.

A sentencing date will be set on March 31.

Justice Colin Westman said it may take a few months before the case is resolved. “Please be patient,” he told the Loukas.

The Waterloo Dispensary hadn’t been in business long. It billed itself as a medical marijuana dispensary.

Meanwhile, four employees arrested at a Kitchener marijuana dispensary after a police raid on March 10 were scheduled to make brief court appearances on Friday.

The raid at Green Tree Medical Dispensary on King Street East seized $17,000 in cash, plus almost $27,000 in marijuana and $5,400 in hashish.

The raid came after police issued warnings to the region’s growing number of unlicensed marijuana dispensaries. The federal government plans to permit the use of recreational marijuana, probably in 2018, but the current law remains in force.