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| Punching Bag Bitch, cry and whine your way into oblivion. |
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Sep 11, 04
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Da Kine gets busted.
Vancouver Police raided the Da Kine cafe on Thursday evening and closed down the 1800-block of Commercial Drive, while hundreds of onlookers jeered them from behind police lines. "It only took four months to figure it out," yelled some, referring to how long the shop openly sold pot to customers.
Dozens of Vancouver police officers arrested six people Thursday evening in a raid on a busy Commercial Drive cafe that openly sold marijuana. Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Sarah Bloor said the six arrested inside Da Kine cafe face charges of trafficking a controlled substance. Outside, some in a crowd of over 200 people taunted police officers, who blocked Commercial between Parker and Napier streets for several hours after the 6 p.m. raid, stopping business at about 20 shops and delaying shooting of a Hollywood movie, The Fantastic Four. The crowd cheered as The Peg General Store played Bob Marley's songs, Get Up, Stand Up, and I Shot the Sheriff, while others smoked marijuana or debated with police manning barricades. More than 100 people continued protesting late into the night, blaming the media for putting Da Kine in the spotlight and accusing police of wasting money. Bloor said the city's drug squad executed a search warrant at Da Kine after complaints by Britannia secondary school, the Grandview Woodland Community Policing Centre and others. She said Da Kine had been "very blatant" about breaking the law. "It was obvious they made this a public event by flaunting their activity." She said Thursday's raid did "not react" to B.C. Solicitor-General Rich Coleman's comments a day earlier that openly selling pot was unacceptable while city politicians took a "ho-hum attitude." Coleman does not direct police operations or investigations, but said Wednesday he was confident the law would be enforced. But residents such as Tammie Tupechka, a member of the board that manages the Britannia Community Centre, called the raid a "message of force and intimidation" that was politically motivated and didn't reflect the wishes of most area residents and business owners. Bloor said the police action had "overwhelming support by other neighbourhoods." She said police were still gathering evidence in the cafe Thursday night. She did not say whether police would raid other shops on Commercial Drive and Hastings Street that also peddle marijuana and related products. Near Da Kine, The Spirit Within shop was closed, while staff at Melting Point said they had no customers. A man who works inside the B.C. Marijuana Party's shop on Hastings was nearly in tears as he rushed to the scene on Commercial. People in the crowd chanted: "We support Da Kine." Others mocked the police, yelling: "It only took four months to figure it out," referring to Da Kine's spring opening. Howard Plummer, who gets marijuana from the Compassion Club on Commercial, said he saw Da Kine owner Carol Gwilt being taken from the cafe in handcuffs. "People looked shocked when it happened," he said. "They stopped all the transit and business here for nothing." Some residents criticized the police for using overwhelming force. At least 40 officers were seen blocking off the area. "This store didn't bother anybody. They didn't force anybody to buy," said Sylvia Salfate, a 78-year old immigrant from Chile. "We don't smoke, but this neighborhood is very open-minded. Now (the police) are pushing it into the street." :( 
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Sep 11, 04
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Fuck Fuck Fuck!
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Sep 11, 04
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old news, 5th post, dont u people fuckin look at what are new threads, OR watch daily news? this was fresh last nite!
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Sep 11, 04
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hahaha... oh shitttt
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Sep 11, 04
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This is still sad, having open pot cafe's was the first step in vansterdamn moving towards the more tolerant dutch system. Amsterdamn has much lower drug use then America, who is hell bent on locking all users up.
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Sep 12, 04
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note to da kine. this other club i go to, which is NOT on commercial, has been around for over 4 years, and has moved 3 times. you guys are not smart.
btw: if you're gonna be the marijuana activist, be the activist. if you're trying to get paid, then get paid. one or the other.
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Sep 12, 04
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Do the two really need to be seperated? Their whole points is that they should be allowed to sell this product and run as a legal, out in the open business. What better proof is there that this should be acceptable than the fact that they've done it for four months now with zero complaints from anyone but out of touch politicians?
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Sep 12, 04
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2 days before they busted the place, the chief police guy said it was looking to "end" Dakine by a a misuse of license - not a criminal practise....i guess they lied. apparently the day after dakine got busted, they were selling again...teehee, props to dakine :)
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Sep 12, 04
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The hearing on DeKind, which is a municipal town meeting, is still days away. The police agreed to wait and see what the city of vancouver decides towards granting it a buisiness license.
Instead like cowards they bust the place days before the hearing even begins. This is hands down one of the biggest wastes of police resources I've ever seen. Is it any wonder there's still over 50 missing women cases in the downtown east side that will never be touched? Let rapists run wild, and lock up harmless potheads.
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Sep 12, 04
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^^ agreed...i guess the way the police justify putting all this effort into drugs and wat not is that they say the underground (and open) drug trade funds "organized crime" - which in my opinion is bullshit on the most part....thats vancouver fer ya *Sigh*
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Sep 12, 04
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^ they're not just speaking of marijuana when they say drug trade funds organized crime. plus most of the over-the-counter pot sales are operated by organized crime.
Last edited by meth0dical; Sep 12, 04 at 03:45 AM.
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Sep 12, 04
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Quote:
for the record i support liberal marijuana laws, and ideally da kine should have be the first(well known) of many new 'cafes' in the lower mainland area.
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Sep 12, 04
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Yeah, what's the big idea, breaking the law. Troublemakers like these activists and that Martin Luther King guy should just shut up and follow the rules. They're there for a reason, after all.
I put a lot more stock in whether things are immoral or moral than whether or not they're against the law. Most of the time something immoral is also against the law, but it's not always as cut and dry as that.
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Sep 12, 04
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so you're saying distributing an illegal drug is moral?
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Sep 12, 04
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so do you want a police force that upholds the law as written or a police force that individually enforces laws based on the moral compass of the person in charge at the time.
Upholding the law and deciding what is right and wrong are two totally seperate and distinct things. i don't see this as a Martin Luther King or Ghandi situation. maybe i don't understand the gravity of the absolute need for someone profiting off drug trafficking to the public. it seems like something pretty cut and dried as NOT ALLOWED. it being allowed or not allowed is more of a court/political issue, which im sure this incident will bring a lot of light and debate to.
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Sep 12, 04
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Quote:
It's not a question of whether or not the cops should be doing their job, it's whether or not part of their job should be to shut down this store. Quote:
Yeah it's not as noble and vital a cause as the civil rights movement, but an issue doesn't have to be that grandiose to still be important. Maybe you understand the gravity of making the selling (not "Trafficking", thank you) of pot legal as a way to take away what is a vast cash cow for criminal organizations, and instead have that money going into our government's coffers?
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Sep 12, 04
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if it's not a question if it should be the cops job to close the store why is this thread full of anti-police sentiment. is it such a big shock that an illegal business got shut down?
it's not like that place was the central hub for distributing weed to pot smokers, how many people are left out in the cold because some lady can't make money dealing illegal substances to the public? is there some magical difference between this lady and someone who deals out of their house, other than the visibility?
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Sep 13, 04
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Uhh. Pls stop debating who is right and wrong. The facts are that marijuana is a plant. Da kine is selling plant parts to people who choose to smoke them. The police have decided that these plant parts being sold should be illegal because they impair the user. Why should the police have the right to stop Da kine? The law? It looks to me that commercial drives society is overwhelmingly in favour of allowing this store to operate. Therefore, since the law is written for the people and by the people, shouldn't local people decide if they beleive marijuana to be legal or illegal. I am sure that a store like this would do poorly in Mission BC. Do you see where I'm headed.
Their are so many more importanat issues in the world, I am ashamed at Vancouvers media dwelling so much on the BC bud factor.
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