DOPE AND HOPE MARK HEARING

The city hall hearing into whether the Prince of Pot Marc Emery can
get business licences for three of his operations started this week
but won't conclude until late July.

Before I get to that, though, I should tell you that the real drama at
the hearing happened after the day's session at city hall adjourned.

There was a bit of a commotion on the stairway leading to the council
chambers' balcony. Four uniformed cops and one plainclothes guy had a
man cornered at the top of the stairs and were shooing folks away. The
cornered fellow was filmmaker Roger Larry, who for the past several
years has been shooting a documentary about Emery.

According to the cops, a backpack had been left unattended outside
council chambers. When no one claimed it, the cops decided to pop it
open and look for ID. They found the ID tying the bag to Larry. They
also allegedly found a bag of pot.

Larry was arrested, but after a brief chat with the cops he was
released. According to Sgt. Neil Munro the bag of pot was "seized for
destruction." And when Emery heard of the Larry bust he said, "He
doesn't work for me."

Indeed, Emery has enough problems without one of his employees getting
nailed for possession. His battle for those business licences is far
from won, particularly given his 2004 criminal record for trafficking
in the evil weed. That too is insignificant compared with the
extradition hearing Emery faces. But let's take these one at a time.

From 2001 until now, Emery has operated his various pot-related
businesses on the Downtown Eastside without a business licence. As
Emery sees it, former mayors from Philip Owen through Larry Campbell
and Sam Sullivan were willing to turn a blind eye to the dope smoking
and seed selling going on under Emery's roof. There were no complaints
from neighbours and no street disorder he says, so everything was cool.

The licensing department apparently declared that Emery was basically
running a political party, The Marijuana Party, and no business
licence was required.

That all changed when Emery decided to expand his empire and applied
for a business licence to operate a convenience store in the 300 block
of West Hastings across the street from party headquarters, Pot TV and
a "vaporizer room" where people pay a fee to consume pot from
something called a "Volcano."

Barb Windsor, the city's chief licensing inspector, explained to the
hearing panel that when Emery applied for that convenience store
licence in 2008, he triggered a police background check. (The check
happened because of a city policy that calls for such checks when a
previous business tenant was found to be engaging in illegal acts. To
stop one bad guy from taking over from another, this policy is applied
to Downtown Eastside addresses.)

When Windsor ordered the check on Emery she found his 2004 criminal
record for trafficking. Emery was busted when he handed someone a
lighted joint at pro-pot rally in Saskatoon.

Anyway, under city regulations, any conviction within five years of
applying for a licence that relates to the type of business the
applicant wants to conduct is enough for the licence inspector to
refuse the licence. When Windsor looked at Emery's smoky
entrepreneurial history and was updated by the Vancouver police on
what was going on under the Volcano, she rejected his
application.

A year later Emery is in front of a council business licence hearing
trying to convince three councillors to cut him some slack.

But all of this may be moot. Before the licence hearing resumes, Emery
will be facing an extradition hearing. Those Drug Warriors to the
south are after him for allegedly selling marijuana seeds through the
mail to many American customers. They want him down there to stand
trial where he faces up to a decade behind bars.