(CHARLOTTE HELSTON / iNFOnews.ca)

KAMLOOPS - An unsealed search warrant police obtained to shut down a marijuana dispensary in Kamloops is revealing new details about the complaints that led to police enforcement.

Staff Sgt. Simon Pillay with the Kamloops RCMP detailed in the search warrant application his reasons for believing Canna Clinic on Hillside Drive in Aberdeen was selling illegal drugs. The items to be searched for included cannabis, business records, rental and ownership documents, computers, video surveillance systems, score sheets, photographs and videos, money related to sales of drugs, scales and an ATM.

Police raided the Canna Clinic dispensary on May 7 and two employees were arrested.

Pillay said police started receiving complaints about the store in early 2017. Although there was a “steady increase” of dispensaries setting up shop in Kamloops since the federal government introduced legislation to legalize the non-medical use of marijuana, Pillay said enforcement on the businesses had not been a priority for the Kamloops detachment.

“However, Canna Clinic has been the subject of grossly more complaints than any other cannabis retail store and a more cooperative (measure) of police intervention have not been effective,” Pillay said in the application.

He said he wanted to encourage retailers to become compliant, so he directed investigators to issue a warning letter to the Canna Clinic in July 2017. The shop had closed briefly before and after that, but had since reopened.

Pillay said the purpose of this investigation was to identify those primarily responsible for owning and managing the shop, identifying the source of the cannabis being sold, and to prevent the continuation of these offences.

He was contacted by a Kamloops resident several times in early 2017, but specifically on May 23, 2017, Pillay said. The man was calling to complain about Canna Clinic, which operated in the same mixed residential and commercial building that he lived in. At the time he was also the building’s strata president.

The man said the store was bothering neighbouring businesses and residents by attracting “undesirable people” and creating problematic smells.

During an interview with Const. Peter Froyland, a drug investigator with the detachment, the man explained that 90 per cent of the residents in the building had signed a petition saying they didn’t want Canna Clinic on the property, and alleged the store was not checking clients’ Health Canada marijuana cards.

In June 2017, City of Kamloops Business Licence Inspector Dave Jones met with Froyland and other drug investigators, and Jones said the City was interested in proceeding with civil and criminal enforcement against Canna Clinic and other dispensaries in town.

The next month, RCMP delivered a warning letter to Canna Clinic. They had just reopened from a brief closure, and closed again shortly after receiving the letter.

The company reopened Sept. 9, and Pillay said he attended the annual general meeting of CML Properties, which manages the Hillside Drive strata, on Sept. 18.

During the meeting Pillay and Froyland explained the laws surrounding cannabis re-sale and why officers sent a warning letter instead of directly moving to enforcement.

A woman who runs a hair salon said during the meeting that she smells the marijuana which bothers her customers, but she was too scared to call the police “for fear of criminals taking revenge.”

“This was an impassioned statement where she seemed on borderline tears,” Pillay said in a report detailing the meeting.

The owner who rents to Canna Clinic was at the meeting, along with several of the store’s representatives, Pillay said. The owner took exception to a comment that was made at the meeting and tried to explain to the crowd the supply chain was safe and even though he doesn’t know where it comes from, the product had been lab-tested.

Pillay said he immediately contradicted the owner and shut down his comments.

“Although he abandoned his theme, the crowd turned slightly hostile at this point and attacked him directly,” Pillay said. “Even members sitting on the board head table (next to us) shouted him down saying things like he should be charged (or) fined.”

On March 13, Pillay spoke with Jones who said he provided Canna Clinic with a business licence cease and desist order.

On May 5, Pillay spoke with a Health Canada agent who said authorized producers can only sell medical cannabis to qualified clients either online or over the phone, and the product is then shipped by mail. There is no site anywhere in Canada where cannabis can be sold out of a store.

During his investigation, Pillay located a previous RCMP file involving Canna Clinic from September 2017. A former employee told the police call taker the store had no licence to sell cannabis and they sold to clients which included underage people.

Pillay spoke with that former employee on May 4. She worked the admin desk, which included signing up new clients to the store.

“She would speak with them and write up “medical sounding” reasons for the client to use cannabis,” Pillay said in the search warrant application. “In the end, she reported the Canna Clinic to the RCMP because of their generally unethical behaviour but at this time will not provide a witness statement or cooperate further because she does not want her name in the media.”

That same day, Pillay spoke to a man who was a manager of the store in 2017. He told Pillay that he was told outright the resale of cannabis was illegal, and the company told him he’d be “taken care of” and there would be no legal backlash if police enforcement happened.

After the RCMP served the man the warning letter, he asked his managers for an official acknowledgement that they would provide him legal support if charged. The Canna Clinic representative he was dealing with allegedly refused to do so, and the man quit.

The man explained that when people would enter the store to buy product, there was a sign up process, where a customer would have to say cannabis helped with some medical condition and it could “literally be anything”.

When the former manager worked there, he said 3,500 people were signed up within nine months.

A former assistant manager was also interviewed by Pillay. She said that after receiving the warning letter from RCMP, she and the former manager were instructed to close the store but re-open after five days. She and the manager were unwilling to do that, so they closed the store and quit.

Pillay spoke to Jones again on May 4. Jones said he went to the Canna Clinic that day and served the acting manager with a bylaw ticket for operating without a business licence. Jones told Pillay that he instructed the employees to close until they are compliant and have a business licence, but the manager said the building’s owner said they were doing a good job and wants them to stay.

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