City's Estimated 50,000 Users Well Served by Retail In many ways, the recently opened Crazy Bill's on Upper Ottawa Street (the family's third location in a growing chain) is the antithesis of the classic head shop: It's large, bright and airy and the huge inventory is meticulously organized and laid out in neat, well-lit display cases. It could be a jewelry store or a computer parts supply place - but it's a head shop selling everything from $1.29 Zig-Zag rolling papers to a $1,000 limited edition Herbalizer electronic vaporizer. [continues 1121 words]
Cannabis Lounge Owner Standing His Ground As Police Promise to 'Relentlessly' Enforce Laws Sitting at the bar of his new cannabis lounge on York Boulevard, a joint lying on the counter by his elbow, Peter Melanson admits that giving away marijuana as a door prize at his weekly comedy show is a bit of a risk. "It's mine. I give it to Dan (the comedy show host) and he gives it to the customer. We're not selling it, we're giving it away." [continues 601 words]
Facility Offers Safe Place for Medical and Recreational Users Hamilton's pot lovers and cannabis crusaders may have found a new home - Melan-Headz Hamilton Vape, a just-opened "vapour lounge" on Barton Street East that advertises itself as "420 friendly." Judging by the puffs of sweet smoke that leak out the front door, and the bongs and spliffs and vaporizers bubbling and sparking and baking at every table and booth and counter, they are not so much "420 friendly" as they are madly in love with it. [continues 1037 words]
Some Landlords Make Life Better for Those Below Poverty Line All too often tenants in low-rent housing find themselves -- and their homes -- held hostage by a host of problems. These can range from the depressing -- filthy common areas, broken plumbing or fixtures -- to the dangerous -- crack house apartments, drug dealing and prostitution in the halls or parking garage or unsafe windows and balconies. An extreme example was brought to light in March when police raids in a trio of east-end high rise buildings uncovered nearly 50 apartments converted to pot farms containing almost 12,000 marijuana plants, raising fears not just about the criminal presence in the buildings, but also potential health hazards from fire, chemicals and mould. [continues 289 words]
One of Canada's foremost bike gang experts predicts Hamilton will host the next chapter of the world's most notorious bikers -- the Hells Angels. If the prediction of retired Quebec provincial police sergeant Guy Ouellette comes true, we could see no fewer than four criminal bike gang chapters calling the Steel City home, a concentration never before seen here. The Angels' biggest Ontario rival, the Outlaws, have ties to the Angels' archrivals, the Bandidos. The Outlaws have set up "puppet" clubs in four communities, including Hamilton, and appear to be opening a brand new clubhouse in Niagara Falls. [continues 2452 words]
Says He May Turn Himself In Police remove a cat and bags of evidence from the island home of Chris Watts on Puslinch Lake yesterday. PUSLINCH LAKE -- Fugitive Chris Watts told a friend he's afraid to surrender to police because of the hostile atmosphere the media has created since the death of Amanda Raymond, 13. The 41-year-old man is wanted on charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and drug trafficking. The charges were laid during the police investigation into Amanda's death at Watts' home on an island in Puslinch Lake, east of Cambridge. [continues 756 words]
Fugitive Chris Watts told a friend he's too scared to surrender to police because of the hostile atmosphere the media has created over the death of Amanda Raymond, 13. The 41-year-old Hamilton native is wanted on charges of sexual assault, sexual interference and drug trafficking. The charges were laid during the police investigations into the teenager's death at Watts' home on Puslinch Lake east of Cambridge. Pierre (Frenchie) Debuque, 34, said Watts came to his trailer on Puslinch Lake shortly after midnight on July 6 and said he wanted a ride to Kitchener later in the morning. [continues 759 words]
Hamilton drug addicts scooped up 52,000 free needles last year, a nearly fourfold jump from 1997 when a surge of overdose deaths sparked a police warning about increased heroin use in the city. The latest figures show the city's taxpayer-funded needle exchange program has seen a dramatic increase in demand for the disposable needles, from the 12,182 doled out in 1996 and 14,231 given out in 1997. Documents obtained by The Spectator under Freedom of Information legislation helped to reveal that volunteers and staff handed out nearly 30,000 in 1999. [continues 1139 words]
An eruption of crack-fuelled violence tore through the city Saturday leaving one man dead, another critically injured, and a third man in serious but stable condition. Two men and two women are in custody facing murder and attempted murder charges stemming from the unrelated attacks. It has to rank as one of the most violent days in recent memory and brutally underlines the links that bind the city's drug trade with violent crime. Shortly before 11 a.m., two men were discovered shot in the head and left for dead in a second-floor apartment of a rundown Sherman Avenue six-plex. [continues 1131 words]
A mid-afternoon Corktown takedown yesterday illustrates why Hamilton police are devoting significant resources to Chief Ken Robertson's promised crackdown on crack. In all, 28 officers from all three divisions have been handed the task of shutting down an estimated 20 crack houses in the city's core. Senior officers have admitted the attack on crack is not motivated by a detailed analysis of a supposed rise in crack-related crimes. Rather, experience has taught police that the use and sale of the addictive cocaine derivative known as crack inevitably attracts a host of other criminal activities, notably violence and prostitution. [continues 710 words]
A routine customs check in Halifax has led police to the arrest of four Hamilton-area men and one of the largest and richest pot seizures in Canada - -- a haul of 314 kilograms (690 pounds) of cannabis oil hidden in a boat cradle. Corporal Michele Paradis, of the RCMP in Milton pegged the street value of the shipment at $12.5 million. The sheer size of the May 1 bust, which took place in a Burlington hotel parking lot, is reminiscent of 1992's Project Maple Syrup, which netted 450 kilograms (990 pounds) of the sticky cannabis product in a series of raids in Florida. [continues 408 words]
