A Burnaby man who describes himself online as a "legal marijuana owner" is facing drug charges along with his mother stemming from a police raid on what the pair called a "medical cannabis" dispensary.
Vancouver police raided the iMedikate store on Renfrew Street in February after receiving complaints from neighbours about drug activity.
"We received numerous complaints about the sale of drugs and the fact that it existed close to a school," said VPD spokesman Const. Lindsey Houghton.
In what may be the first case in B.C., Crown laid drug charges and issued B.C.-wide warrants for Linda Marlene Klokeid, 51, of Maple Ridge, and Mark Thomas Klokeid, 30, of Burnaby.
Linda Klokeid is charged with three counts of trafficking in a controlled substance. Both are charged with one count each of possession for the purposes of trafficking.
Mark Klokeid's assistant who answered his phone said he was out of town. Klokeid didn't return a request for comment.
Klokeid on an entertainment personnel website called himself a comedian, host, voice-over commentator, producer, writer, actor and director who worked on pot.tv and urbangrower.com and in commercials, music videos, film and on the Internet.
In photos on the site, he poses with a large growing marijuana plant and in another with Marc Emery, a Vancouver marijuana activist currently serving a five-year sentence in a U.S. jail for selling marijuana seeds online.
Police say the Renfrew business, which opened in October 2011, is one of a handful that operate illegally in Vancouver. Operators maintain they only sell to buyers with a doctor's note.
Houghton said all such dispensaries are illegal and police would investigate any complaints.
Health Canada regulations that govern marijuana for medical purposes require that users grow it themselves or buy from licensed growers.
Those growers can legally provide only enough for a daily dose of marijuana, five to 10 grams a day, to a maximum of two users, said Don Schultz of Greenline Academy, a Kelowna-based company that offers seminars on the rules of legally selling marijuana.
He said he hasn't heard of anyone being charged with trafficking for operating a marijuana storefront, although he knows of such businesses being closed in Chilliwack, Calgary and Edmonton.
Last week in Washington state, owners of all such storefronts within 300 metres of a school or playground were threatened with closure and seizure of their profits and property if they don't close in 30 days. The letter cited a federal law that allows for such penalties for trafficking near schools, even if the state or municipality allows the sale of medical marijuana.
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