POT KEEPS CROPPING UP

VANCOUVER -- A cafe that had been selling marijuana off its menu for
about four months was doing a booming business before media attention
and then a police raid shut it down briefly, police said yesterday.
But even as police were releasing details of the raid the night
before, Da Kine Smoke and Beverage Shop was doing a roaring trade
yesterday morning.

Dozens of people filled the store, buying grams of pot over the
counter. In the back room, gram bags were filled from football-sized
bags of marijuana. A large box filled with marijuana cookies sat to
one side.

During the raid, officers seized $63,000, another $1,700 US, nine
kilograms of marijuana, some hashish and 300 cookies baked with hash
or marijuana, Acting Deputy Chief Bob Rolls told a news conference.

A one 90-minute period during their surveillance, police saw 230
customers. They estimate the cafe was doing about $30,000 a day, Rolls
said.

Seven staff and one customer were taken into custody Thursday night.
There were 33 people in the cafe at the time it was raided.

"Charges have been recommended and are currently before Crown
counsel," Rolls said.

Carol Gwilt, owner of the shop on Vancouver's hip Commercial Drive,
was quoted widely last week as saying she was just trying to be a
"business person" filling a "huge market."

She said she didn't consider what she was doing illegal. Gwilt was in
jail as the store's till rang steadily yesterday.

A staffer named Michael - he wouldn't give his last name - said 7,000
people had signed up as members of the Canadian Sanctuary Society to
allow them to buy pot at the store.

Outside the store yesterday, customers openly smoked pot while a
police car sat up the street.

"When the SWAT team and the boys came in, they came in with their
faces covered in balaclavas. They had automatic weapons and guns,"
said Don, another store employee.

He threatened lawsuits against the city

"They kidnapped our employees and forcibly confined them and held them
against their will. They looted, stole and trashed our legitimate
business," he said.

A customer outside sharing several joints with people called the
police action "overkill." He handed around photos of police wearing
balaclavas in the Thursday raid.

A police spokesman said last week the cafe was "on our radar," but she
also said police had not received any complaints and had limited
resources to deal with an issue no one at that time had mentioned as a
problem.

Even Vancouver city councillors were nonplussed at hearing the news.

Coun. Jim Green noted there is a tolerance in Vancouver for these
kinds of establishments.

When dozens of officers swooped down on the cafe Thursday night, it
outraged hundreds of people in the Commercial Drive neighbourhood, who
filled the street that was festively dressed to look like a scene from
Brooklyn for a movie shoot.

Filming had to be shut down for the raid.

Many screamed at the officers to go home and defiantly smoked joints
as police manning barricades videotaped the crowd.

Police received three CrimeStoppers complaints.

A Vancouver city licensing hearing had been scheduled for Sept. 15 but
was put over to Oct. 6 after Da Kine hired a lawyer.

A panel of three councillors will decide what to do with the cafe's
licence. It had been licensed to offer limited food service and sell
books, gifts and clothing.