Pot shop objector left high and dry
‘Everyone is just standing still, letting it happen’
When a shop openly selling marijuana opened a couple blocks from her home, Angie Todesco was astounded.
A year later, she shuffles through a file folder of official responses from authorities she figured might have some power to shut down a store illegally selling drugs. She’s written, emailed or called everyone from the prime minister to the Manor Park Community Association. “It doesn’t amount to a hill of beans,” she says.
It’s not easy to get rid of a pot shop.
“Basically, everyone is just standing still and letting it happen,” is Todesco’s conclusion. “Nobody is responsible.”
The federal government has pledged to legalize recreational pot by July 2018. In the meantime, illegal shops proliferate, their numbers barely dented by sporadic police raids. There are about 18 marijuana dispensaries in Ottawa.
Todesco, 71, says she’s no “crazy lady” on a crusade. She’s a baby boomer who went to the University of Toronto back when parts of campus were “drug central” and she’s tried marijuana.
But it offends her sense of justice that drug laws are being broken with impunity, and pot shops tend to set up in “already impoverished and hard-done-by areas.
“It just puzzles me that we are acting in a lazy, nobody-wants-totake-charge way.”
Todesco supports medical marijuana, which is legal for patients with a prescription who order it by mail from growers licensed by Health Canada.
But Todesco quickly learned that the WeeMedical “Dispensary Society” on St. Laurent Boulevard about 300 metres from her home was operating illegally. “If this is a medical need,” Todesco wrote in one of two emails to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “why is it being introduced with no seeming safeguards in the seediest parts of the city, with everyone turning a blind eye?
“If this is a medical dispensary, why is it not housed in a pharmacy where other pharmaceuticals are dispensed. … Is the young man with hat and dark glasses outside on a chair the pharmacist checking that the dosage is correct, that there are no interactions with other medications?”
Todesco said she’s seen Trudeau and his children biking down the parkway along the nearby Ottawa River. In her letter, she invited the prime minister to take a small detour to check out WeeMedical. It adjoins residential areas, including her own quiet, tree-lined street.
The pot shop is also bad for property values, she says. “Nobody in his right mind would want one in the neighbourhood.”
Todesco also worries about pot-shop products finding their way into the hands of children. During a visit this week, the store was selling dried weed, vape pens, shatter (concentrated cannabis) cans of pop, brownies and chocolate bars with labels designed to mimic popular bars like Snickers. The company that produces the candy bars, Herbivores Edibles, boasts on its Facebook page that the bars “have no cannabis taste.”
After repeatedly phoning Ottawa police to complain about the shop, Todesco filed a complaint against the force. Ottawa police raided WeeMedical on St. Laurent in November 2016 during a one-day sweep of dispensaries. Staff were charged with drug trafficking, but the shop soon reopened.
An internal police investigation triggered by Todesco’s complaint concluded that police acted appropriately.
Police monitor the pot shops. But they don’t have the staff to allocate “full time resources to individual store front investigations,” said the report. The police service is “actively engaged in this issue with a citywide perspective versus individual store locations.
“This allows the police to prioritize investigative resources, take a more citywide approach to this issue and consider all factors in laying criminal charges.”
The shops pose challenges, said the report. “There is a nomadic nature to these dispensaries. They become travelling road shows to avoid detection …”
The stores are often interconnected, sharing staff and supplies, the report noted. “The high level ownership does not live in Ontario or sometimes in Canada. They acquire their supplies from a varied supply chain, making it difficult to track, predict and therefore interrupt. The staff are often users of the product and are therefore reticent to co-operate with police or any investigative body.”
The police drug unit focuses its attention on the marijuana suppliers, said the report. “The ultimate goal is to limit their ability to operate because of lack of merchandise.” Police also try to convince landlords to stop renting to dispensaries. Many don’t realize the stores are illegal, said the report. “Many landlords/property owners are victims in this situation in that they were misled and now have lease agreements in place.”
Magued Khristo, the landlord of the building that houses WeeMedical on St. Laurent, said he sent the shop an eviction notice a couple of months ago, but it was ignored.
The rental deal was arranged through a real-estate agent, said Khristo. He said he was under the impression the business was legal. It’s difficult to figure out who is running the shop, because the staff changes frequently, he said.
When the Citizen visited this week, the staffer declined to identify herself or the manager, but promised to pass along a message. No one called back. The store opened last summer when a B.C.-based outfit set up a string of dispensaries in town.
Todesco says her letters to officialdom are getting more snarky as her frustration rises. She won’t give up, though. Her next step is to take the matter to the Ottawa Police Services Board.
“I’m going to push it to the limit. Even if it means annoying them.”