An east London cannabis dispensary that continued operating after police raided it last month closed its doors on Monday after receiving an eviction notice from its landlord.

A joint police task force created to stamp out illegal pot shops has carried out six raids in London since Canada legalized recreational cannabis on Oct. 17.

In the most recent operation, police raided Healing Health at 328 Hamilton Rd. and two other illegal storefronts in the city on Jan. 11, seizing cannabis products and charging four people.

The Hamilton road dispensary – operating out of a building that previously housed a tattoo parlour linked to the Outlaws motorcycle club – reopened as Cannabis Hub Variety within days of the raid.

But the location closed for good on Monday after coming under pressure from the building’s landlord.

A notice on the pot shop’s door said the tenant had broken the Provincial Cannabis Act along with conditions of its lease.

“Due to the said unlawful activity the landlord hereby elects to terminate the lease,” read the letter naming an Ontario numbered company as the landlord.

The document demanded the tenant, whose name was listed at the top of the one-page letter, vacate the space by Jan. 31. But the dispensary served customers until Sunday, according to reviews left on Weedmaps.com, an online directory of marijuana retailers.

Using new powers under Ontario’s beefed-up pot laws, police charged two landlords with permitting a premise to be used for the sale or distribution marijuana following the Nov. 29 raids on Healing Health’s Wonderland Road location and the London Relief Centre on Richmond Street.

No landlords were charged in the most recent crackdown.

Police weigh whether to charge landlords based on whether they knew an illegal dispensary was operating out of their building and their level of cooperation with investigators, among other factors, OPP Const. Adam Crewdson said.

“If you have situations . . . where they tend to ignore it and be part of the problems, then that’s where the charges will be laid under the Ontario Cannabis Act,” OPP Const. Adam Crewdson said.

A conviction for permitting a premise to be used for the sale or distribution of cannabis carries a fine of up to $250,000 and two years in jail for individuals. Corporations could face a $1 million fine, with the fine increasing between $10,000 and $500,000 for each additional day the offence continues.

Adults in Ontario can buy recreational marijuana legally only from the government-run delivery service, the Ontario Cannabis Store, until the first 25 brick-and-mortar retailers are allowed to open on April 1.

Critics have blamed the lack of storefront retailers and the country-wide supply shortage of legal pot for fuelling the black market.

“There’s lots of cannabis in Canada, it’s just almost all illegal,” said Michael Armstrong, a professor at Brock University’s Goodman School of Business who studies the cannabis industry.

Armstrong predicts when the supply shortage eases – it could take months or years, depending on who you ask – the most in-demand pot products, such as high-potency strains of dried flower, will still prove difficult to find through the legal system.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com