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He insisted his rights were being trampled by a patently unfair process and he was angry the CSU charged him though a numbered company (BC0996078), which operated the stores in Vancouver, Victoria and Nanaimo that employed more than 100 people.

“I never sold the cannabis,” Robb maintained. “I am actually an employee of the company. Going after me personally is a major issue, and the other major issue that I have with this is just the process itself. I’m given 30 days to make a potentially life-changing decision. And, at the end of the day, it’s the director of the Community Safety Unit himself who decides whether or not I successfully disputed it or not.”

Vancouver lawyer Allan Macdonald said there was no statutory support for the CSU’s targeting Robb as an individual: “I think they are trying to make an example of my client.”

Robb said he was named as the sole director of the numbered company that operated the stores that ceased operation last summer but are still under lease because the firm has been waiting for months on a decision on its application for a licence to legally sell cannabis.

Photo by CHAD HIPOLITO / PNG

“I’m the registered owner and the beneficial owner of about two per cent of the company. We don’t have $1.5 million, I can tell you that.”

He said Victoria restaurant owner Ahmad Naimi was the majority investor.

The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, responsible for the CSU, was reluctant to comment.

“We can confirm that the Community Safety Unit (CSU) has begun handing out its first notices of administrative penalties to illegal cannabis retail operations that have been visited by CSU officers and had their product and sales records seized,” public affairs officer Hope Latham said in an email response to questions.