cannabisnews.com: The Buzz Across Canada: Coffee Houses Go To Pot





The Buzz Across Canada: Coffee Houses Go To Pot
Posted by CN Staff on September 08, 2003 at 07:53:27 PT
By Tu Thanh Ha
Source: Globe and Mail 
Montreal -- In many Montreal restaurants, you can bring your own booze. So what might be the next logical step? "It'll be bring-your-own-buzz," says Hugo St-Onge. The leader of the Bloc Pot, a provincial pro-marijuana party, he wants to open a café where you can light up your own cannabis.And he isn't alone. Across Canada, a small but growing number of coffee houses encourage customers to bring their own joints, taking advantage of the current legal ambiguity over simple possession of cannabis.
The Bloc Pot's project suffered an unexpected setback yesterday when the landlord of the café that was to open Oct. 1 got wind of the move and complained he hadn't given his approval.Nevertheless, the idea is mushrooming across the nation.In Montreal, organizers envision an alternative coffee house in the Latin Quarter. In Toronto, the promoter doesn't want a hippie hangout and promises instead pool tables and pinball machines.Whatever the style, pot proponents hope that, at a time when other restaurants are trying to curb smoking, theirs will be places where smokers of a certain type are welcome. Opened five years ago in pot-tolerant Vancouver, Blunt Brothers café used to be the sole establishment of the type in the country.But now, within the last six months, bring-your-own-joint shops have sprung up in Saint John, London, Ont., and Toronto, where the Hot Box will be joined this fall by a similar coffee house."The whole country is changing tremendously. This was inevitable," said Dominic Cramer, director of Toronto's second cannabis café. "We intend to break no laws. There will be no trafficking."Promoters of those coffee houses are gambling the current lenient climate will shield their customers from legal troubles."Better there than on the streets. It gives us a place we can call our own," said Boris St-Maurice, leader of the federal Marijuana Party.In Ontario, the courts have ruled that the federal law banning marijuana possession no longer applied because Ottawa failed to comply with a previous court order to create a new legislation.While the rulings is being appealed, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has tabled new legislation where possession of up to 15 grams of cannabis would only be a minor offence.That bill hasn't been enacted yet however, and in that muddled context, some police forces have not been laying charges in cases involving small amounts of pot.As for Mr. Cramer's Time's High Café, "we're not a granola place. We'll have a pool table, pinball machines," he said. Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)Author:  Tu Thanh HaPublished: Monday, September 8, 2003 - Page A1Copyright: 2003 The Globe and Mail CompanyContact: letters globeandmail.caWebsite: http://www.globeandmail.com/Related Articles & Web Site:Cannabis News Canadian Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/can.htmMontreal Compassion Clubhttp://www.blocpot.qc.ca/ccm/english.htmlMontreal Compassion Club Goes Step Further http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17238.shtmlCannabis Café Looking To Sell Pothttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17215.shtmlCompassion Club Wants Say in Pot Debate http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16268.shtml
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help




Comment #15 posted by FoM on September 09, 2003 at 21:54:26 PT
ekim
Here's an article on Tommy Chong I just posted.Tommy Chong's Hopes May Be Up In Smoke: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread17257.shtml
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #14 posted by FoM on September 09, 2003 at 21:29:10 PT
ErikGhint 
I have mixed feelings about what will happen in Canada. I know that in life timing is very important. If the world gets more chaotic it could slow up the laws being changed but if everything goes along without a lot of ripples it could be soon that Cannabis in Canada is finally legal for good.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #13 posted by ekim on September 09, 2003 at 20:22:08 PT
AB --Marc is the highest one on the pole
you know the feds are planning and ploting -- i hope that Tommy will not be gaged and threatened at his court date on 9/11 he must be allowed to make a cannabis movie, many have benifited from his ssalg.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #12 posted by afterburner on September 09, 2003 at 18:38:39 PT:
High Anxiety on East Coast about West Coast
Marc's Seed Site angers Connecticut police chief 
   #657510 - Tue Sep 09 2003 05:44 PM    
 
 Sept. 9, 2003 Student tips police to online drug "supermarket" WTNH TV 
Coventry, Connecticut VIDEO LINK: Watch the story with News Channel 8's Alan Cohn http://video.wtnh.com/news/2003/sept/clips/09092003-bust.ram"It was a minor drug bust but it's got a Connecticut police chief seeing red. The arrest of a UConn student for growing some weed has lead Coventry police to an online supermarket for pot and paraphernalia. It's not what this 21-year-old UConn student had growing in his back yard which is so shocking but how and where he got it. You can buy all sorts of things on the internet including the seeds to grow a variety of types of marijuana...."WTNH News Comments http://www.wtnh.com/global/category.asp?c=19782&EmailTo=wtnh wtnh.com&FormName=News%20Commentswtnh.com http://www.wtnh.com/Global/story.asp?S=1435834&nav=3YeXHu1q
 ego transcendence follows ego destruction, on the eve of the second anniversary of the terror attack on the people of the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon, I would like to see a rebirth of that famous New York moxie.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #11 posted by ErikGhint on September 09, 2003 at 17:57:20 PT
FOM
Well their are a couple separte rulings. I assume that the Onario Court of Appeals will give the rulings for the four cases heard July 29th and 30th at the same time. These cases are regarding the Rogin decision, the Ledherman decision (I think i spelled his name wrong) and some other challenges and or appeals. We are to expect a decision by the Supreme Court of Canada the constitutional challenges on a different day as they were heard by different courts at different times. Well lets hope for the best, I have been keeping up with all the Canadian laws for a few years now simply by reading this website daily. I remember being in great anticipation for the two reports that were to come out by the Senate and the House. Well its been a year since the Senate Committe called for legalization, so now a year later, i am in anticipation that the courts will make that so (well they already have actually)
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #10 posted by FoM on September 09, 2003 at 13:41:35 PT
ErikGhint
You very well could be right. I thought it had been moved back but maybe not. 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #9 posted by ErikGhint on September 09, 2003 at 13:37:41 PT
court cases
I think I read in one of the articles that the Ontario Court of Appeals decision would be in September, but I am not sure. You can't always trust these reporters to have the correct information.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #8 posted by FoM on September 09, 2003 at 11:43:34 PT
ErikGhint 
I read your question earlier and I hoped someone would know and answer but I think it is November now. I believe I'm right but could be wrong.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #7 posted by FoM on September 09, 2003 at 08:56:34 PT
They Call It The Big Smoke ...
By Shinan Govani, National Post  
Is this the puffiest film festival or what? Celebrities are smoking like we've never seen them before, and there's no ifs, ands, or butts about the law!At The Fifth on Saturday night, Nicole Kidman slipped away for a stealth cigarette. At a press conference for the movie I Love Your Work at the Delta Chelsea, model-actress Shalom Harlow got ciggie-envy when Christina Ricci and Giovanni Ribisi were openly blowing smoke, and interrupted the proceedings entirely by asking, "Does anyone have a cigarette?" On Saturday night down on Queen East -- way east -- at a private party for Pot Luck, the long-awaited first film from High Times magazine (starring Cameron Douglas, of the Michael-and-Kirk family tree), all sorts of sorts, including rocker Neil Young, got happily ignited. Then, there's marijuana freedom-fighter Woody Harrelson, in town for the Ron Mann movie Go Further and the play he's directing, This Is Our Youth.And, of course, Stephen Glass, the plagiarizing print guy who's captured on film stock by Hayden Christensen in the festival movie Shattered Glass -- the Talented Mr. Journo who just declared in his piece in Rolling Stone about Canadian weed that "pot has reached so deeply into Canadian life that Canada could very well become the most stoned country on Earth."And finally, merrily, into town this week comes the great Graydon Carter, editor of Vanity Fair magazine and the man once described as "the fourth estate's resident tobacco evangelist." The New York gossip pages regularly trot out stories of Carter defying Mayor Bloomberg's neo-nanny state of no-smoking, and he's also written about it in his magazine, but when I brought up the subject with him during a brief conversation yesterday, he was modest. "I'm a minor player in that fight," he told me. "For me, it's about personal freedom."What else did Carter, in town for the set-to-be-sensational Flick event tonight at Holt Renfrew, tell me?That he had dinner with his Toronto-dwelling brother at the Distillery district on Sunday night. (Likes the restoration job that's been done there.) That his four children, including a 10-year-old daughter, helped advance the idea of doing that controversial "Teen Vanity Fair" cover a few months ago. (Chuckled when I told him the Olsen twins have been staying at the Toronto hotel across the street from him!) That he's never been to the T.O. film festival before. ("I'm not much of a festivalgoer.") That a story he's excited about in VF's next issue is a hard-hitting piece that amazingly digs up the info that the Bush administration allowed several members of the bin Laden family living in the United States to leave the country by private plane five days after 9/11. ("I'm not especially popular with the White House.") That coming up soon is the mag's annual music issue. (Dr. Dre and James Taylor together, finally, on a cover!) Snipped: Complete Article: http://www.nationalpost.com/artslife/story.html?id=098A7042-C617-4BDF-B7DE-07070CF13415
Neil Young
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by ErikGhint on September 09, 2003 at 07:46:12 PT
court cases
Does anybody know when we can expect the results from the Ontario Court of Appeals regarding the four cases heard July 29 and 30, and the Supreme Court challenges which were heard last spring?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by FoM on September 09, 2003 at 06:51:51 PT
Cops Vow Smoke Out At Pot Café
Tokers will face arrests on the spot
 Tuesday, September 09, 2003 
 Copyright: 2003 Montreal Gazette Montreal police are warning pot smokers to stay away from a planned marijuana café on St. Denis St. or face arrests on the spot.But Hugô Saint-Onge, the leader of the Bloc Pot political party, vowed late yesterday to open Chez Marijane at the end of the month, maintaining that he is not intimidated by the police.Although the Amsterdam-style café will not sell cannabis, patrons will be encouraged to "bring their own joint.""The police are there to do their job and we will do our job," Saint-Onge said."They want to arrest people and frighten them, but we want to end the marijuana prohibition, and we will work toward that."Montreal police adopted the apparent zero-tolerance policy toward marijuana cafés after members of the Bloc Pot and Marijuana Party publicly stated their intentions on the weekend."Whether or not you open a place that allows pot smoking in there, it's still illegal to possess marijuana, according to the Criminal Code and we will not tolerate that at all," said Constable Yannick Ouimet."If we catch people with marijuana, they'll be arrested. If we catch people selling drugs, they'll be arrested for trafficking."Yannick refused to say whether police would raid a marijuana café or monitor it closely."We are not going to reveal the way that we investigate, that's for sure. I'm not going to tell you whether we're going to go inside or not, but what I can tell you is that the laws that are being applied now will be applied then."Saint-Onge faces another challenge: the landlord of the building north of Ontario St. has said he won't allow such a café.Saint-Onge, however, argued he's within his rights to open a café, and in any case he's subletting the space from the current tenant, Stomp Records."He knew what we were going to do, but now he's afraid to lose tenants in his building," Saint-Onge said, adding he's not changing his plans.Bloc Pot and Marijuana Party members say the are taking advantage of the legal limbo surrounding pot possession following court rulings in Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.Snipped: 
Complete Article: http://www.canada.com/montreal/news/story.asp?id=34E3B477-E2E2-4388-A97D-5FF628CD4C80
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on September 08, 2003 at 12:32:08 PT:
In Canada, Freedom is winning the race
with Tyranny.Remember the heady days just after the Berlin Wall fell? How everybody was saying that it was the end of tyranny? Well, we all know what happened: the would-be tyrants on our side had no balance wheel to play off of with their mirror images in the Commie Bloc gone. So, it was time to plot treason against your own people to maintain the military/prison industrial complex, and foment all kinds of nastiness (the Korporate Krooks stealing old folk's futures, 9/11, the PATRIOT Act, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) to keep The Machine running and average folks off-balance and reeling from shock after shock.It's always been a race between Freedom and Tyranny, and lately in the US, Tyranny's been winning. But Freedom is hardly down for the count, just bloodied and beat up, still there and struggling to get to its' feet. And it shows in little ways like this.Those who run things had better wise up, as their Tyranny machine may be running balls-out right now, but when it runs out of steam? There's still plenty of patriots, armed and not, just waiting to act as guards in the courthouse when it's our would be emperors's turns to reap what they've sown...
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by Sam Adams on September 08, 2003 at 12:07:03 PT
Baked Alaska, anyone?
I can't wait until the next major reform development happens in Cannada....what will Bush and John Pee Walters say now?  The Alaska legalization should quiet them down nicely. How can they threaten to close the border when Canadian laws are stricter than US? (oh yeah, I forgot....Alaska "re-legalization")
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by FoM on September 08, 2003 at 09:39:24 PT
John Tyler 
I agree. The longer the better. The cat is out of the bag or another expression once you squeeze the toothpaste out of the tube you can't put it back again! Go Canada!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by John Tyler on September 08, 2003 at 09:35:58 PT
good idea
This is a good idea. I would like to see them in the USA. It would be nice to go to a neighborhood cafe for a beverage and meal and small venue entertainment such as a band or comedy act. "Bring it on," as George Bush would say.Also...While the rulings is being appealed, Justice Minister Martin Cauchon has tabled new legislation where possession of up to 15 grams of cannabis would only be a minor offence.That bill hasn't been enacted yet however, and in that muddled context, some police forces have not been laying charges in cases involving small amounts of pot.The longer court ordered legalization lasts the better, as a precedent will be established that will be harder and harder to roll back. 
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment