Owners of two cannabis dispensaries in British Columbia had a rather unpleasant morning on Tuesday when they discovered that their stores had been broken into in the middle of the night.
Langley’s Urban Earth Made (UEM) Cannabis and Chilliwack’s Seed and Stone were the targeted shops. The burglars did substantial damage to the locations when they broke in and stole a variety of merchandise.
The Langley shop is still open for business and the Chilliwack store is temporarily closed following the incident. Seed and Stone has five locations in the province and UEM also has a dispensary in Vancouver.
Security cameras at the Langley store showed that the heist there was completed with an older Ford Focus car and a maroon-coloured Chevrolet truck. View footage of the robbery under way inside the Chilliwack location here.
Both robberies occurred at about 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 9 and appear to be unrelated, Stratcann reported. The owners request that anyone with information contact authorities.
Thank you to everyone who has reached out. We are happy to report we are Open and all cleaned up following our break in. Thank you to all our customers and everyone who has offered us words of support. Please share the vehicle images and contact Langley police if you see them. pic.twitter.com/rEDpWqb15Y
— UEM Cannabis (@UEMCannabis) January 11, 2024
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Cannabis theft an unfortunate trend in BC
Theft from cannabis dispensaries in the province is unfortunately not a novel occurrence.
Just last month, a store on Haida Gwaii’s Graham Island was robbed of about C$2,500 worth of merchandise.
Police arrested a man from Trail, B.C. at the end of October with C$4,000 worth of stolen cannabis products on him.
Mission’s Tricanna was also robbed in the middle of the night in September. The thieves were able to do so quite efficiently, raising suspicion.
“It was so organized. They had all the tools they needed to get the job done in the time frame they needed,” Dayne Lange, Tricanna Founder, said. “They were emptying out our secure room and all of a sudden they just left, so they obviously had someone telling them when to leave.”
In mid-2023 a facility in Agassiz owned by the company Pistol and Paris was robbed of about 120 kilograms of cannabis at around 4:30 a.m. as well. The burglars drove their truck through two of the company’s gates before breaking into a shipping container with the merchandise.
rowan@mugglehead.com
