Pot shop offers city hall dubious documents
A major national cannabis retailer is asking Vancouver City Hall to overturn its refusal to allow it to operate a dispensary in Coal Harbour, but the application appears to be backed by dubious documents.
City hall had rejected an application by Choom — a publicly traded company that describes itself as “one of the largest national retail networks in Canada” — to open a dispensary on the 500 block of Bute Street because the proposed location was too close to a community centre and an existing dispensary.
On Tuesday, Choom will take its appeal to the city’s board of variance, making its case for why the rejection should be overturned and the company be allowed to open the Coal Harbour location, adding to 18 locations they currently operate in three provinces.
Many pot sellers have appealed to Vancouver’s board of variance over the past four years after the city set up Canada’s first municipal retail pot licensing system. Some appeals have been successful, others have failed.
Choom’s appeal is backed by a 27-page package that includes detailed legal arguments, a land surveyor’s report, and letters from businesses in the area showing their support for the dispensary’s opening.
But there’s a problem: When Postmedia News contacted the businesses whose names and logos appear on letters supporting Choom’s appeal, some said they were stunned and angry to learn about it.
Choom’s application includes a letter bearing the logo and address of the Freshii location at the corner of West Georgia and Bute, which says: “Freshii welcomes more plant based and plant friendly businesses, that seek to improve the quality of life of the neighbourhood inhabitants.”
The letter bears a signature, along with the printed name “Frederico.”
When the Sun called the Bute location of the healthy lunch chain, Freshii district manager Pierrick Tanguy said there has never been a staff member named Frederico at his store, or at the Bonus Bakery that shares a space there.
What’s stranger and perhaps more confusing is that the letter, beside the name of “Frederico,” appears to bear Tanguy’s signature, he said.
Tanguy said he doesn’t know how someone got his signature, but he didn’t write that letter, nor another one supposedly from Bonus Bakery that bears the same signature.
“I’ve never heard of something like that before and it’s worrisome,” Tanguy said.
“It’s unfortunate, because we would have no issue with a cannabis store in the area,” he said. But these letters give him concerns about the company.
“This isn’t technically our letterhead. Those logos are available online, so it’s possible someone just copied them from our websites,” he said.
Like other submissions to the board of variance, Choom’s application package, submitted in March, isn’t posted publicly. It was obtained through a freedom of information request by a neighbourhood resident, who provided it to Postmedia.
What stood out in the package were the seven “letters of support” purporting to be from nearby businesses: The letters appeared similar, with no contact information, and in most cases, no one identified by name. Similar peculiar wording was repeated in several.
Another letter in Choom’s package bears the logo and address of the Alberni Street location of Urban Fare, the supermarket chain owned by a subsidiary of the Jim Pattison Group conglomerate.
“Urban fare welcomes more plant-based and plant-friendly businesses,” says the letter, which fails to correctly capitalize the business name.
After The Sun sent a copy of the letter to the company, a spokesperson said in an emailed statement: “We can confirm that this letter did not originate from the team at Urban Fare.”
The letter purporting to be from Coal Harbour Liquor Store in Choom’s appeal package states that the booze shop “supports the growth of responsible businesses in the area.”
But when Postmedia sent a copy of the letter to Coal Harbour Liquor, its director of operations, Nicolle Vaupotic, was surprised. She pointed out that the store’s name isn’t capitalized properly in the letter, the hours listed are wrong, the postal code is wrong, and it’s not on real company letterhead.
“It’s very concerning to me,” said Vaupotic. “It’s bizarre. ... I’m kind of dumbfounded by it all.”
It also bears a signature with no name. After reviewing the letter with her staff, Vaupotic said: “That is nobody’s signature.”
Of all the letters purportedly from neighbouring businesses, the only two with full names are from the Fitness World on Bute Street, bearing the names of the general manager and nutrition manager, the only two staffers identified on the gym’s website.
After The Sun sent the letters to Fitness World’s media relations representative, she replied by email to say: “The Fitness World executive team has said that this would have never happened, they wouldn’t have sent that.”
Reached by phone Thursday, Choom CEO Corey Gillon said he didn’t put together the application himself, and was just hearing for the first time that some neighbouring businesses were upset their apparent endorsement had been included in Choom’s application without their knowledge.
“I certainly wouldn’t have a comment at this point to support or negate,” Gillon said. “We wouldn’t condone forgery.
“That’s somewhat of an accusation, that’s not something we would do to try to achieve preferential treatment in terms of the board of variance or to support our case.”
Gillon said Choom obtained the letters from a third-party contractor, and provided her phone number.
When The Sun reached the contractor, she declined to comment.
Gillon said: “We hired somebody to provide a service, which was to engage the community in Coal Harbour. ...
“Everything that was brought to us, we had no reason to believe it was not 100 per cent authentic.”