Ottawa Police Just Conducted a Massive Pot Shop Raid

Photo via flikr user Dank Depot

Police are going full out against pot shops in Ottawa.

Earlier today, police stormed and raided at least six pot shops in the country's capital. The Ottawa Citizen reports that the stores hit were two Weemedical clinics, three Green Tree Medical Dispensary's and one called CannaGreen.

It has been reported that all five dispensaries were all run by the same BC outlet.

Police have arrested at least one person and were seen bringing in battering rams and tools into several of the stores before leaving with several cardboard boxes filled with alleged contraband and locking the doors.

At the moment it is unknown if police will hit any more shops.

Paul Davie who works at TopSpot, another Ottawa dispensary, told VICE that he's aware of the raids but isn't too worried about the police storming their front doors.

"I believe [the other shops] have been warned and I guess the police are now taking action," said Davie, adding that TopShot didn't receive a similar warning.

"I think if you're not really being a problem with the community they aren't going to come and raid you."

Medical marijuana is legal in Canada but it must be delivered through the post and can't be purchased in person making all the stores in Ottawa technically illegal and unregulated.

In 2015, Vancouver adopted regulations for stores providing medical marijuana from a store front. Davie said that, since Ottawa doesn't have its licensing regulations in place yet, TopShot follows the Vancouver regulations.

Some of the dispensaries hit by the raid have been in the news recently. In Mid-October a truck drove through the front of a CannaGreen dispensary. The people running the shop simply boarded it and and proceeded to sell the weed in a drive-thru fashion.

The landlords of the building told the Ottawa Citizen that they did not know the store was selling weed out of their strip mall. Last week the landlord was able to evict that particular tenant after going to police.

"In my opinion it's kind of a waste of taxpayer money because they want to make it legal for recreational purposes soon. I think it would be better for them to start regulating them, we would love to be regulated, want to be at ease and help our patients," said Davie.

"Right now, this year, Ottawa has the most homicides and shootings in a long time. So I think there a lot more other things to worry about."

Follow Mack on Twitter.