Police raid pair of Indigenous-run pot shops in London

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Two Indigenous-run pot shops remained closed Wednesday after provincial police raided the unsanctioned businesses one day earlier.

The crackdown by the OPP’s joint forces cannabis enforcement unit targeted Spirit River, an unlicensed cannabis dispensary in a trailer at 72 Wellington St., and the Spirit River downtown storefront at 685 Richmond St.

“This property has been closed,” read an OPP sign on the door of the Wellington Road location.

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“If you have interest in the property and want to enter – you may apply to the Superior Court of Justice to get permission to enter under . . . the Cannabis Control Act, 2017. If you enter this property without judicial authorization you may be charged with break and enter (or other related charges).”

The same signs were placed on the door of the Richmond Row dispensary, but had been removed by Wednesday, said a worker at a nearby business.

Police raided the black-market business Tuesday morning and officers could be seen removing product from the store, said the woman, who didn’t want to be identified.

An OPP spokesperson declined to provide any details about the raids Wednesday, saying information about the operation would be released later this week.

The OPP-led cannabis enforcement unit is made up of officers from nearly a dozen Ontario forces, including London’s. 

London police referred all inquiries to the OPP.

Spirit River Cannabis opened its Wellington Street location in a gravel lot, just north of Grand Avenue, in December 2022, without obtaining a licence from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), the province’s pot regulator.

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Maurice French, owner of the store at the time, wrote city officials and police, saying he was exercising his treaty rights to open a “medicinal cannabis trading post” on traditional Chippewa Nation land.

The second Spirit River store opened last year on Richmond Row in a space previously occupied by Fire and Flower, a cannabis retail chain that filed for creditor protection in 2023.

Spirit River’s cash-only pot shops were open 24 hours a day, violating AGCO rules, and sold cannabis products not inspected by Health Canada.

London’s third Indigenous-run dispensary, Sewatohwat Cannabis at 430 Richmond St., just north of Dundas Street, wasn’t targeted in the crackdown and was open for business on Wednesday.

Illegal pot shops began popping up across Canada before recreational cannabis was legalized in October 2018, prompting police to crack down on the black-market businesses, arresting employees and seizing inventory. 

The police effort to snuff out the illicit stores eventually succeeded as more legal retailers opened across Ontario and the price of legal cannabis products became more competitive with the black market.

But soon Indigenous-run dispensaries, a common sight on Indigenous territories, began opening in Southwestern Ontario towns and cities, with operators claiming cannabis laws don’t apply to them.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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