The proprietor of an East Vancouver hashish retailer says he’s involved for the security of his workers after a person armed with a gun tried to rob his retailer Monday evening.
That is the primary time Kingsway Hashish has been hit by an tried theft, in keeping with the shop’s proprietor Charles Variboff.
“When somebody has a gun that’s actually scary, you haven’t any thought if it’s a actual gun or a reproduction or a starter pistol or a bb gun,” Variboff instructed International Information.
Fortunately, nobody was injured and the suspect left empty-handed however Variboff is frightened this would possibly occur once more.
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The shop’s home windows are lined by opaque movie with no technique to see in or out and Variboff says his workers are left feeling weak to robberies.
“the very last thing you need to do is get up within the morning and go to work and assume you’ll find yourself harm, or worse, find yourself in a physique bag,” Variboff mentioned.
When hashish was first legalized in B.C. it was a requirement to dam the view of any merchandise or gross sales from outdoors however that requirement was dropped in 2020, not less than within the province, after regular pushback from the business.
“Particularly when there’s such an increase in violence round right here a few years in the past, there was a homicide shut by at Tatlow Park. And with the fixed issues occurring at hashish shops across the metropolis we wish to have the ability to shield our workers,” in keeping with Kayley Nelson, Normal Supervisor of Evergreen Hashish.
Nonetheless, it’s nonetheless a federal requirement to dam the sight of merchandise in pot outlets to guard kids.
“For some cause Well being Canada doesn’t like the thought of kids with the ability to see hashish merchandise however there’s quite a lot of different issues occurring. Like there’s fixed commercials for playing, for ingesting. And though we don’t need younger children consuming hashish, I feel there’s rather a lot worse issues for teenagers to have the ability to see,” Nelson added.
“Our proprietor has been actually captivated with security and simply not agreeing with what Well being Canada thinks is the most effective when it comes to the security points. As a result of, town was actually lobbying for no window coverings at first. And Well being Canada simply utterly wrote that off,” Nelson defined.
“We have now thought of revisiting our present window coverings, however I do know the Hashish Act was up for evaluation this 12 months and we didn’t need to do something to shortly.”
Vancouver Police are investigating the tried theft, telling International Information anytime a deadly weapon is used is regarding.
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