Bongs, hash pipes? Not near our kids, Markham parents say

Yorkregion.com
April 14, 2016
By Amanda Persico

Every week, one Unionville resident stopped in at the local convenience store to buy milk and lottery tickets.

That is until she noticed some of what she considered unsightly items for sale - hash pipes, bongs and rolling papers.

“The items were in a glass case. I never noticed them before,” said Ayse Tanaçan. “This is a nice neighbourhood. There is no need for that to be sold here. Whoever is buying this stuff is coming into our neighbourhood.”

To make matters worse, Daisy Mart - located at the corner of Carlton Road and Village Parkway - is near a local elementary school and is a popular spot for older students to buy gum and candy.

'Intolerable’

“Things like this don’t belong in our neighbourhood,” she said.

Tanacan started telling friends and neighbours about the situation in hopes of putting pressure on the store owner to stop selling the items.

That’s how Carla Quinn got involved.

She started writing letters to local residents asking them to stop shopping at Daisy Mart.

She wrote to elementary school administrators, parent council members, ratepayer groups in the area as well as a daycare located in the same plaza as Daisy Mart.

She even went up the Mac’s Convenience Store chain.

While there may be a growing acceptance of marijuana use in society and a Liberal government pledge to legalize marijuana use, opinions clearly vary, especially when it comes to children’s exposure to the items in stores.

“It’s not casual users buying this stuff,” Quinn said. “It’s addicts and users. This is intolerable in our neighbourhood.”

While independently owned, Daisy Mart is an affiliate of Mac’s, which has an anti-drug paraphernalia policy, said affiliate senior manager for Mac’s, Jeff Poulin.

“Once the issue was brought to our attention, we acted quickly to have the product removed from the store,” he said in an email. “We have taken corrective action to ensure this does not occur again.”

While this may seem like a victory, the incident left a sour taste for many residents.

With talk of convenience stores getting the right to sell alcohol, how can local residents trust their local corner store operators, Quinn wonders.

“You can’t have it both ways - wanting our trust to sell alcohol then selling drug paraphernalia,” she said.

Meanwhile, the sale of pipes, bongs and rolling papers is not a Markham-only problem.

Glass pipes and bongs can be found in about 10 per cent of independent stores, said Ontario Convenience Stores Association (OCSA) president Dave Bryans.

According to the OCSA, there are more than 95,000 convenience stores in Ontario and independents make up close to 60 per cent.

Many of the major chains, such as Mac’s, 7 Eleven or Petro-Canada gas stations, have collectively said they will not stock or sell drug-use items.

Importing, exporting, manufacturing, promoting or selling items for illicit drug use is illegal, but the challenge is when the same item can be used for something else, said York Regional Police Const. Andy Pattenden.

While the most obvious use for a glass pipe or rolling papers may be to smoke crack or marijuana, both items can also be used for legally smoking tobacco.

The challenge is proving an item is for the sole use of illicit drugs, Pattenden said.

To the untrained eye, a glass tube may simply be a glass tube.

“Most people might not know what it is,” Quinn said. “But kids know what it is. Take the fake rose out of the glass tube and you have a crack pipe.”

In many cases, items such as pipes and bongs are brought in by a distributor and sold on consignment, Bryans said.

With declining tobacco sales and gum and chocolate bars sold at the checkout of large grocers, which now sell lottery tickets, too, the big convenience store chains are leaving the province, he added.

That leaves independent store-owners who are trying to survive to fill the gap.

There is a high profit margin for pipes and bongs, Bryans added.

Unfortunately, the fight falls on local residents.

“If you are unhappy about these products, don’t shop there,” he said. “Make lots of noise at your council.”

It’s not fair to the shop owner, he added, suggesting many are not aware these items are cause for concern.

Nor is there much education for shop owners on how to deal with or refuse these items from a distributor.

Quinn acknowledges the storeowner is a business owner, trying to make a living.

“It’s hard to run a small business,” she said. “But this is not the right way. We all have to take care of our own little corner.”

Adding economic pressure is one sure way to fight the issue, said local Councillor Don Hamilton.

“There’s lots of places to buy milk,” he said. “Residents can follow up by not shopping there.”

Quinn is working with the local ratepayers group to keep an eye on the situation.

If bongs and pipes re-appear on store shelves, the local resident plans to ask city council to enact a bylaw prohibiting the sale of such items in Markham.