Montreal police raid illegal magic mushroom shop — again

Montreal police raided a store selling illegal hallucinogenic mushrooms on Thursday afternoon — just over a week after police shut down the same store on its opening day last Tuesday.

Despite the arrest of four people last week, the shop, FunGuyz, reopened days later. 

Service de police de la Ville de Montréal (SPVM) Const. Jean-Pierre Brabant, confirmed the arrest of five people, including an employee — a 26-year-old woman — who was at the shop when police raised the store at around 4:10 p.m.

Brabant said two other raids took place on the island of Montreal, both at apartments, one of which is located in the same building as the shop.

FunGuyz advertises itself as a "medical dispensary" that sells magic mushrooms, a type of fungus that is considered a hallucinogen.

It is located on Ontario Street, just east of Papineau Avenue in the Ville-Marie borough. 

People who have identified themselves as owners of FunGuyz stores have claimed to be campaigners for the legalization of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.

The production, sale and possession of magic mushrooms are illegal in Canada, except for some medical contexts which require special permission from Health Canada. 

But the people behind FunGuyz say they should be legalized.

According to Jean-Sébastien Fallu, an addictions specialist and assistant professor at the Université de Montréal's school of psychoeducation, the city of Montreal may not have much recourse if the store keeps insisting on reopening.

"If, after a few police interventions, nothing changes, I believe that we could see, as in British Columbia, an abandonment of this intervention strategy," he told Radio-Canada.

FunGuyz already operates 11 locations in Ontario, five of them in Toronto. Police have raided several of the stores, have seized stock and arrested employees, but each store reopened shortly afterward.

The owners are challenging the charges in court, a spokesperson for the store said earlier in July.

On the day of last week's raid, a man working behind the counter at the store who identified himself as one of the owners and said his name was Hector Hernandez said he and his partners expected police to raid the store, but said he wanted to assure customers that it would reopen immediately.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante had said in a statement that, "despite her administration's strong position in favour of decriminalization of drug possession" the sale of psilocybin remains illegal and Montreal police would "continue to enforce the law."