Abbotsford pot dispensary rejection upheld by court

ABBOTSFORD (NEWS 1130) — As long Henry Braun is in office, he says there won’t be any business licenses handed out in Abbotsford to anyone obtaining marijuana illegally.

Braun is reacting to an order from a BC Supreme Court judge to a local Weeds Glass & Gifts that says the dispensary is in breach of the City of Abbotsford’s business licence bylaw. The location has been told to stop selling cannabis and close operations within three days.

Braun says he is happy with the decision.

“Medical marijuana is not an issue for me, I’ve said this many times, this business is operating illegally and is not part of health Canada’s regime for people to have access to medical marijuana, so in fact they’re buying marijuana from illegal sources, that’s an issue for us, ” Braun says.

“If you don’t like the laws, there’s a process to amend those and in our case it would be to appear before council to convince us why we should change something.”

Don Briere, the owner of Weeds Glass & Gifts, operates more than 20 pot shops in BC and Ontario and says he’s tried to work with the city to keep this business open.

“The city doesn’t have a licence category, we’ve tried, we actually have three checks that they sent back to us, refunding us their money because they didn’t have a category and they didn’t want to work with us on it,” Briere said.

He plans to appeal the verdict and keep the business open.

“We don’t want to stop, because there are people who are dying right now and I don’t know who has the right to say that they can’t get medication to at least ease their pain.”

This past fall, the City of Vancouver approved business licences for a handful of dispensaries, including a Weeds Glass & Gifts location on Victoria Drive.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has said the Liberal government’s election promise to legalize and regulate marijuana could be a two year endeavor.

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