Rebellious Vancouver cannabis retailers fall into compliance with court order

One of Vancouver’s most vocal and enduring marijuana activists has closed his illicit Downtown Eastside dispensary less than a week after the B.C. Court of Appeal rejected a bid by nine unlicensed shops to stave off closure.

Dana Larsen closed his Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary on East Hastings Street briefly on Wednesday morning with a protest rally and speeches, before clearing its shelves of marijuana and reopening as a self-declared “information and harm reduction centre.”

“If I thought me being here or being arrested would keep us open longer, I would absolutely do it,” Larsen said, and he had mixed feelings about closing.

However, he said the penalties would be for contempt of court for violating the B.C. Supreme Court order and he risked having his organization’s second dispensary on Thurlow Street near Davie, which is going through the official licensing process, shut down.

“I don’t see any other options here right now,” Larsen said.

The Dispensary was one of the nine illicit shops that appealed last December’s B.C. Supreme Court decision ordering the closure of unlicensed retailers still open in Vancouver, at the request of city hall

As of Wednesday, all nine had closed or stopped selling cannabis, according to an email from the city’s chief licence inspector, Kathryn Holm. That included four Weeds Glass and Gifts locations.

Holm added that 10 unlicensed shops that weren’t part of the court challenge are still operating and the city has “either filed or is preparing to take legal action” against them.

In April, the slow roll out of legal cannabis retail stores coupled with a still-robust illicit market in B.C. were cited as reasons for this province lagging behind neighbouring Alberta in the legal recreational marijuana market, according to an analysis by the Arcview Market Research group.

Legal retail in the province was “a drop in the proverbial bucket” compared with illegal B.C. bud, particularly the so called grey-market dispensaries, said Tom Adams, principal and analyst with the Colorado-based firm BDS Analytics, which conducted the research for Arcview.

Now, in Vancouver, about half of the 20 illegal stores have closed and six provincially licensed private cannabis retail stores have opened.

Holm said the city has received 39 notifications from the province for applicants who want to open stores and 26 of them have completed public notification requirements under Vancouver’s regulations and have been recommended back to the province for approval.

Larsen argued that the process has been slow, which is OK by him since he is reluctant to jump into legal retail because cannabis edibles and other derivative products that his clients rely on remain illegal.

However, according to Holm, the city is “doing everything possible to coordinate with the province and the operators to complete these steps quickly.”

Provincially, Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth said community safety units set up to enforce the new legal regime are starting to visit unlicensed retailers to encourage compliance.

“As we’ve said before, illegal retailers that do not obtain a provincial licence will have to close,” Farnworth said in an emailed statement. “As more legal retail stores open across the province, you can expect to see increasing enforcement action by the CSU.”

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