A new London dispensary is selling marijuana to anyone over 19, a move that blatantly flouts the law and poses a direct challenge to the Ontario government’s plan to control the sale of pot when it’s legalized by next summer.

While unsanctioned pot shops aren’t new in London — four others continue to operate despite repeated police efforts to snuff them out — a storefront selling cannabis products to clients without a valid prescription is a first.

The so-called 19-plus business model is popular in Toronto and Vancouver, where dozens of dispensaries operate, but the London Relief Centre is the only local dispensary to openly sell pot to anyone presenting identification showing they’re at least 19.

The new shop quietly opened its doors on Richmond Row last week, just as the Ontario Liberals announced plans to open 40 ­government-run cannabis stores and an online service by the summer, when Ottawa is expected to deliver on its pledge to legalize recreational pot by July 1.



In the same week the Ontario government announced how it plans to sell marijuana a new independent dispensary has opened on Richmond Street south of Oxford Street on Thursday September 14, 2017 (MORRIS LAMONT, The London Free Press)

Dr. Mike Hart, whose Richmond Row clinic specializes in pot prescriptions, was surprised to learn of the new dispensary nearby.

“I’m shocked,” Hart said. “I thought that since that plan was laid out last week for legalization, that the government would just be shutting down every single dispensary in London.”

The province has vowed to stamp out the remaining unsanctioned pot shops, pledging more then $274 million for enforcement.

But one cannabis industry watcher says the rogue dispensaries, like those in London, aren’t going anywhere.

“There’s still just under a year left until legalization (and) there’s likely a lot of money to be made in that window,” said Jenna Valleriani, a University of Toronto PhD candidate studying Canada’s marijuana market. “I think they’ll continue to open up even past the July deadline.”

Customers of the London Relief Centre must show identification proving they’re 19 and fill out a two-page form on laminated paper, providing basic information on past pot use and agreeing not to resell product or use it near the shop.

“There are maybe 10 different points that you have to check off and sign,” said one member, who didn’t want to be identified. “Then they erase it.”

Staff at the London Relief Centre declined to comment.

The dispensary operates from a ground-floor unit at 691 Richmond St., in the shadow of two towers housing hundreds of post-­secondary students. City tax records show the commercial building, valued at just over $1 million, is owned by a numbered Ontario company.

There are Relief Centre dispensaries in Toronto, but it’s unclear whether the London store is linked to them.

A London police spokesperson wouldn’t say whether the new dispensary is being investigated.

Last week, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police asked Ottawa to delay cannabis legalization by six months, saying more time is needed to train officers to handle challenges the change will bring.

In London, police last raided five pot shops across London on March 2, seizing $170,000 in cannabis products and laying two dozen drug-trafficking charges against eight people, all of them dispensary staff and owners.

With marijuana’s pending legalization, many have questioned whether pot charges laid in recent raids will hold up in court.

Dispensaries are a divisive topic in communities, with some citizens demanding authorities shut them down, while others saying crackdowns are a waste of police resources.

The businesses are still illegal under a federal law.

dcarruthers@postmedia.com

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London pot shops

Tasty Budd’s, 96 Wharncliffe Rd. S.

London Compassion Society, 5 Oxford St. W.

Healing Health, 1472 Dundas St.

Healing Health, 490 Wonderland Rd. S.

London Relief Centre, 691 Richmond St.