Two unlicensed cannabis shops in Kamloops are both back open a day after authorities seized product from both locations.
Both Canadian Safe Cannabis Society on Tranquille Road and Boomer’s Bud on 12th Street were back open as of noon today, and both were selling cannabis after having all their products seized yesterday.
The city’s business license inspector Dave Jones says that information will be forwarded to the province’s task force on cannabis – who led the seizures yesterday.
“They could have their doors open and they could be advising their customers that no product is available, and they could be advising their customers to go somewhere else. Unfortunately some product is available to their customers.”
Trevor Smith, a regular customer at Boomers’s Bud, says he doesn’t go to the government cannabis store because he says a lot of people there “don’t look like they belong.”
“People with suits and ties, and it just kind of strange. You know you come here and it’s just friendly people. Normal people like yourself. No one is trying to impress anyone, no one is trying to do anything special or interesting. It’s just you come in, you get your product and you leave.”
Smith says authorities would be better off stopping drug dealers or people selling toxic drugs.
Just before 11 a.m. yesterday, the province’s task force on cannabis, Kamloops RCMP and city staff visited both stores and seized cannabis products from both locations. The seizures come more than two months after the provincial task force visited both stores and asked them for compliance – to stop selling cannabis – or to shut down.
Jones says neither store is licensed to sell marijuana.
“The Canadian Safe Cannabis location, they have a business license as a consultant to advise people about the medical cannabis, to put them in touch to with places where they can obtain that access to the safe cannabis. And so they’re there more to educate folks about medical cannabis.”
Meanwhile, Jones says Boomer’s Bud does not have a business license with the city whatsoever.
