He's Not Going to Lie to You

IN KENSINGTON, THE SMELL OF SOMETHING NOT QUITE LEGAL

Some wind has gone from the sails of the pro-pot movement of late. A
federal bill to decriminalize marijuana for users caught with less
than 15 grams died when Parliament shut down. And as of Oct. 7, when
an Ontario Court of Appeal ruling clarified the law, Toronto police
resumed enforcing the law for simple possession of pot, after four
months of laying no charge for under 30 grams.

Police in Montreal a week ago arrested two people smoking a reefer at
Chez Marijane, a cafe in the city's Plateau Mount Royal neighbourhood
whose owner said "if people want to smoke a joint, it's fine."
Apparently the cops disagreed.

Here in town, Roach-O-Rama, a shop in Kensington Market "serving
pot-heads since ah ... I forget" which sells rolling papers, pipes,
Bart Simpson bongs and Bob Marley incense, became known last summer
for its patio, where people could light up a spliff in peace. These
days, Abi "Roach," 25, the owner of the Baldwin Street shop, won't
talk about what goes on in the store's Hot Box Cafe (whose logo is two
cartoon-face joints) and its rear patio.

"As of Oct. 7, '03, the pot possession law is back in effect," reads
a sign in Hot Box Cafe. "Beware we are not involved in your adult
decisions." Nonetheless, posters advertising the cafe, "Where stoned
is a way of life," blanket the neighbourhood and on Friday, there was
plenty of traffic into its back yard.

Also in the market, an outspoken, slightly overweight pothead of
Polish extraction is continuing the pot crusade. I speak of Mark
Stupak, owner of Happy Girl Hydroponics, on Augusta Avenue just around
the corner from Roach-O-Rama. This storefront has changed tenants
often of late; it has been a shoe store, a gambling den, a clothing
store and now, a place where you can buy everything you'd need to grow
weed, except the seeds.

"People shop here to grow dope in their closets," Stupak says. "I'm
tired of this bulls---. They are not growing tomatoes. The idea is
simple. You have a closet, put in a light, put in an oscillating fan,
and for less than the price of an ounce you can get a simple set-up."

Mr. Stupak, 30, immigrated from Poland with his parents at age 14. By
age 20, he says, while studying finance at Ryerson University, he
became a pot grower and founded a hemp club.

"I finished with good grades while smoking dope," he claims.
(Ryerson said it couldn't confirm this on short notice.) After
graduation, he says, he grew dope full-time, which is strictly illegal.

"I'm pretty stressed out from the stress of growing for 10 years,"
he says. So he stopped growing and opened this store. The name, Happy
Girl Hydroponics, refers to female pot plants -- the ones that get you
stoned.

Mark says a grower needs a high intensity discharge light like those
that brighten the highways, and a transformer, which allows you to
plug it in. So far, that's $300. Throw in $60 for ventilation that
allows you to close the closet door. The shop also sells Promix, a
combination of peat moss, vermiculite and perlite.

In a closet at the back of the store is a demonstrator system, a light
under which grow tobacco, aloe vera, an orchid and a jade plant.

"I don't know if the tobacco plant is legal or not," he adds
hastily. "I'm not selling it." Why did he choose Kensington for his
business?

"It's a hippie neighbourhood and I knew I would not have a problem
with any of my neighbours," he says. "I only hang out with
potheads." Still, "I get people who I know are cops asking me if I
can sell them clones." (He doesn't). He calls this attention silly:
"If you're growing pot in your closet that's the same as you jerking
off 20 times a day. It may be obsessive, it may be harmful, but who
are you hurting?"

Elsewhere in the market, people object to the label "hippie
neighbourhood." I stop in to buy a roast at Max & Sons on Baldwin,
founded by Max Stern in 1955 when this was the "Jewish Market;" his
son, Solly Stern, now runs the place. Max & Sons is a comfortable,
spotless old butcher's shop with sawdust on the floor and hooks on a
bar across the front; Mr. Stern is slicing goat ribs on a huge Bird
Model 22 table saw. A cleaver rests on a well-worn butcher block.

"Roach-0-Rama is not great for the neighbourhood," he says.
"There's all kinds of noises here. There's a few people who have
moved out because it's too noisy in the middle of the night."

Sunday shopping has hurt Kensington, he says: fewer people stop by on
weekdays for a cut of meat (even though the prices seem right: ground
beef, $2.39/lb, boneless roast $4.39/lb., oxtails $3.99/lb). When
David Miller stopped by here during the campaign, Mr. Stern told him
the city should promote Kensington as it promotes St. Lawrence Market.

Clearly, Max & Sons faces tough competition from supermarkets;
Roach-O-Rama and Happy Girl Hydroponics face no threat from big-box
stores, as yet, so more such stores may crop up here. In the end, they
add to the eclectic mix that's Kensington, a neighbourhood of
entrepreneurs that, whether it smells of fish or marijuana, blissfully
defies gentrification.