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Don Briere bills himself as Canada’s largest storefront retailer of marijuana, a status that’s earned his business a distinctly Canadian nickname: “The Tim Hortons of pot.”

There’s one glaring difference, of course. It’s not against the Criminal Code of Canada to sell coffee and doughnuts.

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Briere’s stores — including his 12 across British Columbia — sell marijuana illegally.

So what will happen to his busy chain of Weeds Glass and Gifts outlets when the B.C. government opens its first legal marijuana stores later this year?

“It will be a competitive thing,” Briere told me. “It’s all about free enterprise, right?”

Wrong, actually. When the government starts opening its own pot shops, they’ll also launch an aggressive new effort to shut down Briere’s stores and the dozens of other illegal marijuana dispensaries across the province.

“The province will create a new community safety unit to deal with illegal sales outside of the provincial framework,” the Ministry of the Solicitor General said in a statement.