Published 3:50 pm Monday, May 11, 2026
By Liam Razzell
On April 21, the province’s Community Safety Unit conducted its fourth raid on the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club since 2019. (Bailey Seymour/Victoria News)
The Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club (VCBC) says the province has filed civil forfeiture documents aimed at seizing its 1625 Quadra St. location.
“This is the first time a property has been seized from the landlord by the government because a medical cannabis dispensary was operating without a licence,” VCBC said in a May 11 email.
This comes three weeks after the province’s Community Safety Unit (CSU), joined by VicPD and Victoria bylaw officers, raided VCBC, which provides medicinal cannabis without the proper licensing and permits to those who may not be able to afford or access marijuana at legal dispensaries.
“It’s a retail space, but it’s also where we gather every day,” Jax Kittel, VCBC’s past president, said at the April 21 raid. “It’s a space for low-income, disabled folks to get together and share their medicine in a third space, which we don’t have very much of in the city.”
CSU, however, has said VCBC sells cannabis without proper licensing and permits, contrary to the provincial Cannabis Control and Licensing Act and the federal Cannabis Act.
The club was raided in 2019, 2020 and 2022. In 2024, courts upheld a $3.2 million fine related to the 2019 and 2020 raids at the club’s previous home.
VCBC said in the same May 11 email that B.C.’s Solicitor General has filed a certificate of judgment against the home of VCBC board member, Clea Maclean, in an attempt to collect the $3.2 million.
A judicial review challenging the fines and ongoing raids at the club has been filed by the VCBC’s lawyers.
VCBC remains operational “but with limited medicine.”
The Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General said “the Director of Civil Forfeiture cannot comment on this matter as it is currently before the B.C. Supreme Court,” adding “we are unable to provide information or comment on any specifics regarding action taken by the CSU.”
With files from Bailey Seymour.