Pot shops smell fishy
It seems like every where you go in this city, there’s another pot shop opening up. One, two, even three to a block! It’s amazing to me that there are that many people in this city with a marijuana prescription.
For this many pot shops to survive economically, every man, woman and child in the city would need to be smoking up 24-7. Prescription pot smokers would have to out-number cigarette smokers, because it seems like there’s way more pot shops in Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»then there are tobacconists. That doesn’t seem right to me…
The police recently shut down a pot shop in East Van because it had ties with the Hells Angels. I wonder, how many of these quasi-legal businesses are merely money laundering fronts? It wouldn’t surprise me given the complete lack of regulation.
It’s harder to open a bar or even a restaurant in this city than it is a pot shop. Even food trucks are better controlled than pot shops. That doesn’t make sense, does it?
I don’t have an issue marijuana per se, but if these so-called businesses are merely fronts for organized crime, then the City and the police need to do something about it.
–Not smoking what you're selling
Ěý
Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»only has itself to blame
Re: “The dearth of downtown bookstores”, Â鶹´«Ă˝Ół»Shakedown, Jan. 21, 2016.
Grant laments that there "is not one new-title bookstore [...] in the entire downtown core” of Vancouver.
I want to add that, at one time, less than 10 years ago, there were numerous full-service, independent bookstores. Think of Duthie Books, Blackberry Books, Book Warehouse, Mystery Merchant, etc.Ěý
Yes, high rents and increased competition in various forms contributed to this bleak state of affairs. Vancouverites in general like to rant and rave about the importance of supporting local community and culture. However, when push comes to shove in actively supporting the bookstore, the will is not there to get up and out of their comfort zone to walk a few blocks to the bookstore. It is a “scandal” indeed.Ěý
–Ria Bleumer, former manager of Duthie Books and former owner of Ardea Books & Art.
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