FILE PHOTO - Herbal Green Apothecary owner Jukka Laurio is pictured at a Penticton City Council meeting last year. The City of Penticton is proceeding with legal action to shut down Laurio's dispensary on Westminster Avenue.

(STEVE ARSTAD / iNFOnews.ca)

PENTICTON - Legal action is underway to shut down a marijuana dispensary in Penticton that continues to operate without the City's blessing.

The City says it is seeking an injunction against Jukka Laurio, the owner of the Herbal Green Apothecary on Westminster Avenue.

Herbal Green has been in operation at least up until April 20 without a temporary use permit, according to a City of Penticton media release. A court date is scheduled for June 5.

In a statement issued by the City yesterday, April 25, director of development services Anthony Haddad says Herbal Green as the only medical marijuana dispensary in the city to continue to operate without a permit following council’s December 2016 decision to grant temporary use permits to Green Essence and Okanagan Cannabinoid Therapy. The other marijuana businesses who were not granted permits have since ceased operations.

Haddad says Herbal Green has been repeatedly fined for operating without a temporary use permit and the city is now moving on to the next step in enforcement, which is injunctive action.

Laurio says he has yet to be served any legal documents.

“I was in the process of closing my shop on April 23, I had told everyone,” Laurio says, adding he opened for 4-20 celebration on April 20 for a sale to reduce his inventory.

Laurio says since the City issued the statement yesterday business has been booming at his dispensary.

“If they are insisting I’m open I might as well be open,” he says.

He says the City is wasting a lot of time and money on nothing.

“It’s just personal to them. They should be working on what they’re gong to do when marjiuana is legalized.”

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