Well-travelled Cannabis Museum on hunt to score Auckland premises
The co-founder of the Cannabis Museum hopes to bring the operation to Auckland and is currently hunting for a 200 square-metre property to set up shop.
Abe Gray, who also curates the museum, said museum exhibits would include the infamous Hit for Six: the Story of Cannabis and Cricket, a history of protests, and the ability to examine live female flowers under microscopes and see the glands containing the drug’s psychoactive substance.
Other popular attractions include elaborate smoking devices created by ‘‘genius university students’’ and clever methods of concealing hydroponic systems inside dressers, Gray said.
‘‘The museum’s been around in different iterations for eight years now, and every time we have had it around 50 per cent of our visitors were domestic tourists, many of them from Auckland,’’ he said.
With the exception of medicinal cannabis, the drug is still illegal in New Zealand, with penalties ranging from a $500 fine for possession to 14 years in jail for its supply or manufacture.
However, Gray didn’t expect any issues. ‘‘The mood towards cannabis has changed, and the legitimacy with medical cannabis has really opened a lot of doors. Obviously if the referendum had passed it would have been better, but we are still in a really good position social-license-wise.’’
The Whakamana Cannabis Museum first opened in 2013 a villa in the Dunedin suburb of Caversham. By 2018, it occupied the whole house, and then moved to the site of a former Indian restaurant on Princes St.
The museum then moved to Christchurch, and was based in the heritage Shand’s building on Manchester St in 2019 before closing in April 2020.
There were attempts to open the museum in Wellington to help influence the referendum, but Covid-19 stalled the operation and most of the exhibits are now gathering dust in storage in Otago.
Other exhibits include the history of video games.
‘‘The history of video games is very tied up with cannabis culture, and not in the way that you think,’’ Gray said. ‘‘We have a whole arcade of playable machines with all the classic video games talking about that history.’’
Members of the new museum will have access to a clubroom where cannabis consumption will be allowed, so long as it’s medically prescribed. Gray said he hoped the Cannabis Museum could find a hospitality partner to co-sign a lease.
He said he would like to talk to any operators who had been hoping to open a cafe´ postreferendum who were similarly aligned with cannabis culture.
Edibles, however, were still off the menu.
‘‘We have looked at quite a few properties, and we keep coming back and looking at the same ones and the prices keep going down.’’
Gray would like to find somewhere on a main thoroughfare, ideally on the city fringe.
If a partner came forward, Gray said he would ideally like to open by April 20.
‘‘That’s kind of a big holiday for the industry.’’
Russians, Italians, and the former owner of the Leeds United Football Club want their $17 million back from a small Auckland company.
NF Global, directed by Auckland resident Claude Oberto, has been given until April by the High Court at Auckland to repay entities connected to the international businessmen.
Associate Judge Roger Bell, in a judgment released this week, said the company’s balance sheet showed it owed customers $11m and had a negative equity.
‘‘Creditors in this case are some $16.8m ... it may be wondered how many other customers NF Global has besides those in this case,’’ he said.
NF Global was set up in 2009 and runs an online platform for the international transfer of funds without customers needing to go through the mainstream banking system.
All shares in the company are owned by Starboard Capital SA, which is registered in Switzerland but operates from London. The company also owns the London-based Northern Fides group, which provides asset protection and wealth management services.
Oberto’s Linkedin profile says he has run NF Global since 2014 before which he was an ‘‘independent chairman’’ of the New Zealand Financial Advisors Association and the chairman of the Community Organisations Grants Scheme.
The case before Judge Bell related to four creditors who deposited money with NF Global in the last two years and who wanted the company put into liquidation. Starboard opposed the liquidation application.
Michael Arjang, an Israeli/ Italian businessman claimed about $2m and LD Drago, a Romanian company owned by Paulo Zeriali, a London-based businessman, wanted its $529,000 back. Sky Capital Management, a Hong
Kong software company owned by Russians sought $3.3m, and Eleanora Sport an English company owned by Italian Massimo Cellino, the former owner of the Leeds United Football Club, claimed about $11m.
The controversial Cellino owned the club between 2014 and 2017.
NF Global said it had delayed returning Arjang’s money because it suspected he was laundering money gained from criminal activities. Arjang had not established a company he referred to in a memo and one of his companies was linked to ‘‘24option’’, which was under investigation by agencies all over the world, with its banker also the subject of a money laundering investigation.
Arjang, who bought expensive Rolex watches with money from his NF Global account, told the court NF Global was happy to accept his payments and his explanations and only started being difficult when he wanted to take money out.
Judge Bell said he had seen no evidence of actual money laundering.
‘‘There may be suspicion but that is all.’’
New Zealand’s anti-money laundering legislation required NF Global to terminate a business relationship if money laundering was suspected, but it could not keep the money. It had to be returned to the customer.
NF Global alleged LD Drago was hiding the actual recipient of the funds it wanted back and was not a telecommunication company as claimed.
Judge Bell said NF Global had not shown good reason why the parties should not be paid. It had raised money laundering concerns about Arjang and Zeriali but accepted it had to repay their money. Their money was held by an electronic money services provider in England called Ipagoo, which was currently under administration, but the money belonging to Sky Capital and Eleanora was not.
NF Global had not given any updating information on its financial position including management accounts.
‘‘If NF Global’s financial position had improved since 31 March 2019, it would have wanted to tell the court. Its silence suggests that it has not.’’
Judge Bell adjourned the liquidation application to April 23 to allow Starboard Capital and Northern Fides to provide funds for NF Global.