Police raid ‘brazen’ mom and pop drug shop
Business was AKRON — booming this summer at a little brick mom-and-pop drugstore next to Summa Akron City hospital.
Lines of people with credit cards and cash sometimes snaked along the Adams Street sidewalk waiting for their turn to buy what was inside.
“Great atmosphere and vibe,” one man wrote on Cloud 9 Herbal Gallery’s Facebook Page. “High ly recomend!!”
On Tuesday, just after lunch, Akron police raided the shop and said they seized marijuana — leaf, edibles, oils and other forms — cocaine and a handgun.
Lt. David Garro, who runs the department’s narcotics unit, said police had never seen anything like it.
“For someone to set this up and run it like it was a legitimate business is brazen,” Garro said.
A large sign advertising Cloud 9 hung across its building, the former longtime home of Adams Street Bar. It marketed itself on a website and Facebook page, saying it had “everything you need to elevate yourself.”
And, Garro said, it accepted credit cards.
Residents started complaining about Cloud 9 several weeks ago, police spokesman Lt. Rick Edwards said.
Calls came in to the mayor’s office, to the police chief and even to Edwards, who said his job rarely has him fielding citizen complaints.
Garro said his team set up surveillance and officers bought illegal drugs inside as part of an investigation in the weeks before taking action.
Police let the customers inside the store leave during the raid without being charged. Garro said possession of a small amount of marijuana amounts to little more than a traffic ticket in the state of Ohio.
And the man and woman who own and operate the store were not there.
Court records show DeShawn Stafford — who is listed in state records as registering Cloud 9 Herbal Gallery — was already in the Summit County Jail after being indicted twice this year on cocaine trafficking charges unrelated to the business.
It is not clear where his partner — who is pictured on Cloud 9’s Facebook page and with Stafford in a story about Cloud 9 on akronhiphop. blogspot.com — was. The Beacon Journal is not naming the woman because she has not been charged.
But a 26-year-old clerk working at Cloud 9 — Christian Rackley — faces drug trafficking charges, police said.
A frequent customer of Cloud 9 on Thursday called the Beacon Journal asking why the shop was raided, saying legal medical marijuana sales are overdue.
Ohio lawmakers in 2016 began setting up the process for state-licensed medical marijuana growing and selling operations with a target date of sales beginning Sept. 8. But delays have pushed back that date until at least December or early next year.
Three distribution sites were approved in Akron. Cloud 9 is not among them.
The woman who shopped at Cloud 9 went there to buy hemp oil, or CBD, which she said her neurologist suggested to ease symptoms of multiple sclerosis. The Beacon Journal agreed to withhold the woman’s name from publication to avoid placing her in legal jeopardy.
CBD is shorthand for cannabidiol, a chemical found in cannabis plants including industrial hemp plants, used to make rope and clothes, as well as marijuana plants. Most of the products use CBD derived from hemp, which contains almost no THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana that gives people a high.
CBD oil has been available in many stores, but the Ohio Pharmacy Board ruled earlier this week that no cannabis products can be sold in stores now or in the future. The products will be available only in dispensaries once they are operational.
At first, the woman said she shopped at the front of Cloud 9 — where police said the store also openly sold illegal marijuana edibles and other products.
But after a while, the woman said she was invited into “the floral room,” a separate office off the main store with a desk, scale and bookshelves lined with different kinds of leaf marijuana.
“If they were just selling medicinal marijuana back there, no problem,” the woman said, even if it was illegal.
“We have to buy medical marijuana from the dope dealers instead of from the doctors who sell you oxycodone,” she said. “It’s just one drug dealer vs. another drug dealer.”
The woman, however, said Thursday she was shocked to learn police said Cloud 9 was also selling cocaine, too.
“They should go to prison for that,” she said, adding that teenagers made up many of Cloud 9’s customers.
Garro said police are still investigating Cloud 9, which has closed.
He didn’t speculate where the cocaine came from, but said Cloud 9 probably bought its marijuana products from Oregon or Colorado where marijuana is already legal and marked up the price to illegally resell it.
The woman who helped Stafford run Cloud 9 often told customers she had lupus and suggested the marijuana products they sold helped her.
But Garro said Cloud 9 wasn’t about helping sick people. He pointed out that Stafford has a lengthy criminal history and that unlike marijuana, cocaine has no medical purpose.
“Nobody is in this (Cloud 9) for an altruistic purpose,” he said. “This is a money-making endeavor.”