Pot Cafe Puts Up Tokin' Resistance
13th Sept, Calgary Sun, Canada

VANCOUVER -- The pot business was smoking yesterday as hundreds dropped in to visit Da Kine cafe, raided last week for openly selling marijuana to customers. Owner Carol Gwilt said people were showing up to offer their support after Thursday's well-publicized police bust.

"People are coming out in droves to support us," said Gwilt, who spent Thursday night in jail and is charged with benefiting from the proceeds of crime.

Police -- some wearing balaclavas -- seized $63,000 in cash and 9.5 kg of marijuana from the shop Thursday.

At one 90-minute period during their surveillance, police said they saw 230 customers. They estimated the cafe was doing about $30,000 of business a day (that's about a million a month folks! Ed.)

The casually-dressed, youngish crowd came in yesterday as much for the shop's notoriety as for the opportunity to buy high-grade marijuana for $10 a gram.

Down the street from Da Kine, the pungent aroma of burning weed could be smelled as a threesome rolled joints and toked up.

A police squad car was parked a block away while another pulled into a side street, out of view.

"We know who the undercover officers are," said Lorne McLeod, a member of Da Kine's management team.