HOLY SMOKE: CANNABIS CHURCH-CAFE SET TO OPEN

WINNIPEG -- Part church mission, part cafe and meditation lounge, a
new business set to open next week in Winnipeg's Osborne Village is
bound to turn some heads every time the door opens and lets out a
distinctive waft of marijuana smoke.

The Cannabis Devout Mission Cafe is devoted to all things hemp --
including smoking and worshipping the most stimulating member of the
mulberry family as a religious sacrament.

Founder Chris Dalman said his cafe will be the first in Canada where
cannabis is promoted for its environmental and spiritual properties
and inhaled by those professing membership in the Church of the Universe.

"What we plan to do is revolutionize and set a standard for cannabis
cafes and missions in Canada," he said. "It's time for an
establishment to exist in a healthy, positive, constructive way that
facilitates the culture and is not associated with druggy, underground
connotations."

The Cannabis Devout Mission Cafe isn't being hidden away in an obscure
city back alley where it will escape notice.

Instead, it will operate in a modern commercial building, swathed in
galvanized steel, that boasts an Urban Barn decor store, a popular
eatery and a radio station among its tenants and is situated in one of
Winnipeg's busiest downtown neighbourhoods.

Mr. Dalman, a minister with the Church of the Universe, which
currently has only 12 members in Winnipeg but is likely to grow, said
he expects the cafe to attract attention.

The Church of the Universe was founded by Walter Tucker in 1969 in
Hamilton, Ont., for the purpose of worshipping cannabis, which is
called the Tree of Life, practising nudism and alternative
spirituality.

According to the church's Web site, "members are encouraged to
surround themselves with the holy Tree of Life, not just inhaling it,
but wearing it, growing it, writing on it, eating it, etc. They decide
for themselves ways and times to use God's Tree of Life."

At the Winnipeg cafe, that means that some people will smoke marijuana
but there will also be those who come in just to learn about it or buy
environmentally friendly hemp products.

"There are many people who smoke and have no belief that it is of a
religious significance . . . These people will be allowed in our cafe
but not allowed to smoke," Mr. Dalman said.

As for the legal aspects of what he is doing, he said he and his
supporters will take it one step at a time.

The cafe will be forbidden to minors unless they have an adult
accompanying them or written permission, Mr. Dalman said. No tobacco
or alcohol will be available or sold. There will be absolutely no
dealing, he said.

And eventually he says the cafe will allow patrons who have Health
Canada authorization to smoke marijuana for medicinal purposes there.

What will skirt the letter of the law is Mr. Dalman's intent to allow
his church members to smoke the weed as a religious sacrament at the
cafe.

"Legal is a relative term . . . we are prepared to go to jail for
this," he said.

"We're aware the police are watching what we're doing."

No one from Winnipeg Police Services was available to comment
yesterday.

But the precedents for this kind of enterprise are hardly promising.
In January, Vancouver police raided and shut down that city's
fledgling Marijuana Tea House, which was originally established for
medical marijuana users, when an undercover officer bought the illegal
herb there.

The Church of the Universe has also had its own troubled history. The
cult of nudists and cannabis lovers thrived unchallenged on 144
hectares of land and rock quarry between Hamilton and Guelph in the
early 1970s.

But after a severely decomposed body was found on the property in 1975
and the church was linked to members of biker gangs, two decades of
police scrutiny began that resulted in countless court appearances by
Mr. Tucker and Michael Baldasaro, another Church of the Universe
minister who later ran for the mayoralty of Hamilton.

In 1994, a Church of the Universe minister was found hogtied and
murdered in his home.

Mr. Dalman is undeterred. He plans to open his cafe quietly next week,
as early as Monday, and then plan a bigger splash later in the month.