Operators of a controversial medical marijuana store on Somerset Street have closed up shop amid an Ottawa police investigation into whether they were operating legally.
Police said Friday The Greater Ottawa Health Advocacy Centre has been vacated. Officers from the drug unit went to visit the shop early in the week when they saw that it had been closed.
“We’re really going to change the face of Chinatown. There’s going to be a whole lot more smiling faces here,” the store’s owner Ryan Levis told the Citizen in early July.
The store, the first of its kind in Ottawa and operating as a non-profit, opened on July 2 and was quickly encircled in controversy for its lax practices around regulations imposed by Health Canada.
Under federal legal provisions, people requiring marijuana for medical purposes need to apply for a Health Canada issued Authorization-to-Possess card or have a declaration signed by their medical doctor.
The Ottawa police drug unit began an investigation into whether the business was operating legally after Levis publicly said that he would not deny marijuana to anyone even if they didn’t have the proper paperwork to access it.
– Read the entire article at Ottawa Citizen.
