OKIB staff met with weed police months before raid
A recent bust of unlicensed pot stores on the Okanagan Indian Band's Green Mile appears to have been spearheaded by the Band itself, which invited the province's pot police for a meeting earlier this summer.
According to a letter obtained by iNFOnews.ca, some members of the Okanagan Indian Band want all the unlicensed cannabis stores closed down and replaced with a single Band-owned store.
"(The) OKIB is unable to enforce and/or regulate the current sales of cannabis at the many shops on the Reserve, therefore the next best thing is to partner with the (provincial) Community Safety Unit," the letter reads.
The letter asks the question: Is the Okanagan Indian Band in favour of working with the province's cannabis enforcement division, the Community Safety Unit?
Band councillors unanimously agreed with the idea.
According to June 24 Okanagan Indian Band council minutes, the province's cannabis inspectors, the Community Safety Unit, were scheduled to hold a sit-down meeting in early July with the band's administration regarding the unlicensed cannabis stores.
"The Community Safety Unit is invited to (the) community to present on the resources they have to make OKIB a safer community in regards to the unlicensed and unregulated cannabis shops," the council minutes read.
The move comes after a community group called the Community Consultative Group wrote to council pitching the idea for one Band-owned store.
"If cannabis is to be sold to OKIB Community Members, it needs to be a safe supply," the letter reads.
It's unclear how many stores were raided by the province's Community Safety Unit on Oct. 29. The province refused to release any information, only confirming that it did conduct enforcement at the Okanagan Indian Band.
“The Cannabis Control and Licensing Act is a law of general application that applies across B.C., including on lands governed by First Nations,” it said in an email.
Vernon North Okanagan RCMP confirmed they were only on site at the request of the Community Safety Unit to keep the peace.
TIMIXw Wellness owner Cory Brewer owns two stores on Okanagan Indian Band, one by Vernon airport and one on Highway 97.
“From the sounds of it… we were the only ones that never closed,” Brewer told iNFOnews.ca. "Everybody was shut down."
Brewer said some closed up shop when they saw the provincial cannabis inspectors coming.
The Okanagan Indian Band member said the province closed down stores owned by both band members and non-band members.
Brewer wasn't sure who initiated the raid.
"It would have had to have been chief and council, but at the same time, (the) Community Safety Unit… has this opinion that they don't have to run things by chief and council," he said.
About a dozen unlicensed stores sit along Westside Road, which earned the nickname the Green Mile. They popped up shortly after legalization and skirted the rules in what has been considered the "grey market."
The province's lack of action to close the unlicensed stores was met with outrage by many who had sunk vast amounts of cash into obtaining a provincial license to run a legal pot shop.
In 2022, a group of concerned licensed cannabis store owners from around the Okanagan took the province to court over the lack of enforcement action but had the case rejected in the early stages.
Brewer said the provincial cannabis inspectors visited the Okanagan Indian Band about two weeks ago to do an "educational review" so he assumed a raid would likely follow.
He said that some Band members had requested the shops be shut down as they weren't owned or run by Band members.
"They're using our members as a shield against the provincial frameworks," he said. "They can slap a shitty little sea can down on the ground and pay the First Nation who would be happy to accept a thousand dollars or two thousand dollars a month, which is chump change, to allow them to operate," he said.
Brewer described non-indigenous people running cannabis stores on the reserve as “garbage."
He wasn’t sure why the province’s pot police hadn’t approached his stores, but he did point out he is currently suing the province after it raided his Vernon cannabis store weeks after it opened in 2020.
The recent raid has upset a lot of band members, Brewer said, and there’s a push to have the cannabis industry on the Okanagan Indian Band only operated by band members.
The Okanagan Indian Band didn’t respond to a request for comment.
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