CONVENIENCE STORE OWNERS DENY SELLING DRUGS TO CHILDREN

The owners of a downtown Oshawa convenience store flatly deny police
accusations that they sold drugs to children, after being charged with
possession of cannabis and controlled drugs.

"I honestly don't understand why the police are accusing us of selling
drugs to children. The allegation is illegal possession of drugs," the
owner of JS Mart on Ritson Road told the National Post yesterday.

"I don't know where they are coming up with the selling part," said
the woman, who declined to give her name.

Durham Regional Police say they were alerted by staff from a nearby
public school of allegations that a local convenience store was
selling cigarettes to children, some as young as 10 and 12 years old.
On Thursday afternoon, Ministry of Revenue tobacco enforcement
officers called police after a compliance investigation at the store
where they allegedly discovered illicit drugs. Upon arrival, police
say they found a candy bucket containing "individual packets of street
drugs" including oxycodone and Percocet tablets, as well as Dilaudid
pills and marijuana.

While the owners of the store, a 39-year-old woman and her 41-year-old
husband, were arrested and charged with drug possession, a press
release issued by police yesterday alleged the owners were "busted for
selling drugs to children."

However, the couple -- who have operated the convenience store for
five years -- were not charged with drug trafficking.

"The allegation is that they were selling cigarettes cheaply to young
people and in the store we located individual packets of street drugs,
so the allegation is that they might have been for sale as well," said
Durham Regional Police spokesman Dave Selby.

"That's not true at all," said the owner, a mother of three children
aged 5, 8 and 11.

When asked about the alleged discovery of drugs, she said there was
some "medicine" in the back of the store, the names of which she had
"no idea."

"If it's a drug squad, they should know that it was medicine," she
said. "The last person I would think would do this is the police."

She said there was a 26-gram bag of marijuana in the store that was
given to her husband by a friend, but "he never tried it."

The couple also deny being held for bail hearings, as stated in the
news release. The owner said she and her husband were released on
Thursday on their own recognizance and reopened the store later that
night.

"We have three kids and we work hard," she said. "All of a sudden, the
police are coming out with these false allegations. We're totally
ruined. That's how I feel."

Police say the investigation is ongoing and are offering rewards of up
to $2,000 for tips related to the case.