The pot shop that started it all in Penticton has closed its doors.
Jukka Laurio has ended a months-long battle with the city after RCMP letters threatened charges against the city’s dispensaries.
“Well I can’t fight a war on two fronts; it doesn’t make any sense,” Laurio said. “You’ll never really win. So I can’t fight them both (RCMP and the city) by myself, so I’ve got no choice, really. I’m just going to close. We’ll see what happens.”
Laurio’s last day operating the Herbal Green Apothecary was Wednesday, timed with income assistance cheque day.
“It was quite amazing. Yeah, they were quite appreciative of it. Everybody liked it, because I had buy-one-get-one-free for five days,” he said, adding that he did the sale to get rid of his products. “It’s gone, it’s just empty-looking shelves.”
Laurio says he still has some hard feelings toward council over the process of the past several months.
“It became quite personal. Anything that I touched was immediately tainted and refused,” Laurio said. “There was no sense to it anymore. They just, ‘no.’ It was just a plain ‘no.’”
For now, Laurio’s Rush In and Finish Cafe remains open, and he says he’s still looking to put a non-profit in the pot shop’s space, now that council’s only issue is gone. But, he does have other plans.
“Three years ago, I started with this thing, the objective was to put in a licensed marijuana manufacturing facility,” Laurio said. “I needed to get zoning for that, so I approached the city about zoning about that, and I still have yet to hear back from them about that.”
Aside from zoning, Laurio would need to undergo processes set out by the federal government, which, to date, has only permitted 40 licensed producers and sellers of medical pot.
Meanwhile, both Okanagan Cannabinoid Therapy across the street and Green Essence on Martin Street remain open, both of which have been granted temporary use permits from the city.
Okanagan Cannabinoid Therapy has a no-comment policy, while Green Essence has declined to comment on the matter.
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