Media gather at the opening of the Fun Guyz magic mushroom store, in Montreal, Tuesday, July 11, 2023. The shop specializes in psychedelic mushrooms, which are illegal in Quebec. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz
Montreal police on Tuesday raided a store selling illegal magic mushrooms on the day it opened to the public.
And despite the police operation, company spokesman Edgras Goban said he expects FunGuyz to reopen as planned on Wednesday morning.
The first FunGuyz location in Quebec opened in Montreal Tuesday offering pills, dried fungi and chocolate bars, all containing the psychedelic agent psilocybin, a substance subject to sale and possession bans in Canada.
Goban said FunGuyz has been the target of police raids in Ontario, where it has 10 franchises. FunGuyz, Goban said, has “been through this multiple times before.”
Montreal police confirmed on Tuesday they had launched an operation against the store in the city’s Village neighbourhood.
Goban said he expected police action. “We do expect the police to come in and raid us because obviously what we’re doing, it’s illegal,” he said on Tuesday before police descended on his store. “The idea behind everything is, are the police willing to “¦ use the taxpayers’ money for mushroom stuff?”
He described FunGuyz as a form of protest to challenge public policy surrounding hallucinogenic drugs, adding that the company planned to open as many as five more locations in Quebec this summer, including a store in the Montreal suburb of Laval that he said was set to open within weeks.
In a statement, Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante’s office said that despite the “administration’s strong stance in favour of decriminalizing the simple possession of drugs, and the adoption of a declaration to this effect by the entire city council, the sale of psilocybin remains illegal, and the (police) will continue to enforce the law.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 11, 2023.
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This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Meta and Canadian Press News Fellowship.
