Perplexed about what’s going on with the explosion of pot stores in Vancouver, I decided to check out a new one that’s just opened in my neighbourhood. It was my first visit to a so-called medical marijuana dispensary. There are now four times as many of these as there are McDonald’s in our town, and almost as many (84 at last count) as there are Starbucks (93), according to the Vancouver Sun. I know of four within a 10-minute walk of where I live. Twenty new shops have opened in the past four months.
Even celebrity pot entrepreneur Marc “Prince of Pot” Emery is playing catch-up, only just now opening his second outlet with a bizarre “toke-with-Marc” promotion: “Free tokes with Marc Emery. Buy at Cannabis Culture Headshop and Vapor Lounge and get dabbed by the Prince of Pot! Every day from noon to 6 p.m. and 6:30 to 9 p.m. at our new Davie St. location,” says one of his ads.
Note to marketing students: this strategy is not recommended if you value your health. Seriously, all-day toking? This man needs medical attention – and not with marijuana.
My neighbourhood store was clean and airy, with a very attractive woman behind the counter attentive to my questions. I started by holding up a vial of pills from a prescription I had.
“Is this sufficient for me to qualify to buy here?” I asked.
“Sure, just sign this sheet,” she said, passing me a form that made me promise not to resell anything I bought, not to make a scene outside the store and not to sell to minors.
“That’s it?” I wondered, surprised and relieved at not having to fake it through a 30-minute appointment with some pull-down naturopath.
“Yes, that’s fine. What would you like?”
An overhead screen above her flipped through the offerings, but I wanted to know more, so she happily led me into a bigger back room with glass display cases featuring large jars with various varieties of pot in small plastic bags, baked goods and other paraphernalia I didn’t recognize. A full-on pot store, pretty well open to any adult, across from my neighbourhood park, probably dealing illegally sourced marijuana. What the hell is going on?
Business is simply riding the wave of changing public opinion. In 2004, the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD) Emergency Response Team shut down Don Briere’s Da Kine Smoke and Beverage Shop on Commercial Drive. Local residents were outraged at the time. Briere went to jail – not for the first time. Now he’s out and has opened nine Weeds Glass and Gifts stores, a chain that’s been described as the largest and laxest marijuana franchise in Vancouver.
The city is now scrambling to deal with this entrepreneurial outbreak, poised for the mother of all public hearings on a series of proposed restrictions, including a $30,000 licensing fee.
Even though owners in the pot business welcome the recognition of formal approval from the city, that requirement could trigger a court challenge, because city fees are only supposed to recover costs.
There aren’t a lot of police costs associated with these new stores because the further pot moves away from being distributed by gangs who like to shoot each other, the lower the costs of crime.
Also, the police have a lot better things to do than torment a quiet store illegally selling a relatively harmless substance to consenting adults.
“Our goal is to have less shootings. Marijuana is not a top priority,” VPD Supt. Mike Porteous said at the city council meeting that voted 10-1 to take the city’s proposed regulations to a public hearing.
More than two-thirds of Canadians want marijuana either legalized or decriminalized in some way. Data from other jurisdictions shows that this leads to less, not more, pot use among minors – also less crime, fewer car accidents and less drinking.
I walked out of the pot store with my head spinning – and not because of anything I bought there. •
Peter Ladner ([email protected]) is a co-founder of Business in Vancouver. He is a former Vancouver city councillor and former fellow at the SFU Centre for Dialogue. He is the author of The Urban Food Revolution.
