Vancouver city councillors have voted to reissue the business licence of a dispensary that has been selling mushrooms illegally but openly since February 2023 — a decision store operator Dana Larsen described as “cracking the door open” for regulation of psilocybins in the city.
The Medicinal Mushroom Dispensary at 247 W. Broadway had its licence suspended last May for “gross misconduct” for selling prohibited and controlled substances in defiance of federal laws and for misrepresenting itself on its licence application as a business selling party supplies and novelties.
At a business licence hearing Tuesday, a three-person panel approved a motion asking staff to reinstate the licence with terms that clarify the business is involved in education and advocacy of medicinal psychoactive substances.
“I’m very pleased with the decision,” said Larsen after the hearing. “We are now the only shop in Canada licensed to sell entheogens, mushrooms, peyote, LSD and DMT, but I really hope we are not the last.
“We opened the door now, just a crack, but it’s only going to get bigger.”
The city’s lawyer, Robert LeBlanc, told councillors Adriane Carr, Pete Fry and Mike Klassen at the hearing that the store’s intention has always been to sell illegal substances in contravention of federal law and the city’s licence bylaw.
He recommended the panel defer to the findings of chief licence inspector Sarah Hicks.
Green party councillors Carr and Fry rejected the findings of gross misconduct, saying they believe the licence-holder didn’t intend to deceive, but applied under the most suitable category available.
The use of psychedelic substances among Indigenous people and for spiritual or religious reasons is well-established, said Carr, adding she doesn’t believe they cause harm.
