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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Cannabis pub landlord loses licence
Eastern Daily Press, Norfolk
Friday 25 Jun 2004 The landlord is drawing on a spliff as he serves customers who are also=20 openly rolling and smoking cannabis joints. It might easily be some caf=E9 in Amsterdam, but in fact it is the scene= that=20 greets undercover police officers when they walk into the Gallery Bar, not= =20 a stone's throw from Yarmouth seafront. Behind the bar, alongside the normal snacks, are two boxes containing UKP5= =20 and UKP10 cannabis wraps, a court heard yesterday. As a result of the raid, landlord Michael Skipper, 58, appeared at Norwich= =20 Crown Court in April and was found guilty of possessing cannabis with=20 intent to supply and sentenced to 100 hours' community service. And yesterday, the self-proclaimed cannabis champion =AD who stood in the=20 borough council elections for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance (LCA), polling= =20 187 votes =AD appeared before Yarmouth's licensing magistrates to fight an= =20 application to have his liquor licence revoked. After hearing evidence from witnesses including neighbours, who told of=20 late-noise noise and a pungent smell of cannabis wafting down the road, the= =20 Bench decided Mr Skipper was not a fit and proper person to hold a liquor=20 licence and that his St George's Road premises were ill-conducted. Mr Skipper, who has been given 21 days to appeal, defiantly admitted he=20 still smoked cannabis, and after the hearing declared that legalising=20 cannabis "would be a way of regenerating the town". He said he felt so strongly that driving drugs underground was not working= =20 that he might stand in the next general election for the LCA. Alison Ings, representing the police, told the court that seven arrests had= =20 been made during the drug raid in January, and an Ecstasy tablet was seized= =20 as well as cannabis. Cannabis was found on floors and shelves all over the premises, and=20 apparatus including scales was also seized. She said: "This was not a one-off incident and there is evidence going back= =20 to 2001 of people saying all sorts of drugs were available on the premises." Alarming unsubstantiated reports =AD taken seriously by the police =AD= included=20 a tip-off that someone was going to be shot in the bar, and that on one=20 occasion a man with a gun was dealing in crack cocaine. Ms Ings said evidence of Mr Skipper's "flagrant disregard for the law" was= =20 that neighbours reported having to close their bedroom windows because of a= =20 strong smell of cannabis as recently as last week. She said local people still believed cannabis was being sold because of the= =20 number of suspiciously quick visits to the bar. One of Mr Skipper's neighbours, Aliceon Blair, told how he repeatedly tore= =20 down gates she had put up in the private alley outside her 200-year-old=20 cottage as a security measure. As a result, since he had moved to the bar in March 2000, the lives of her= =20 family and neighbours had been made a misery by Mr Skipper's customers=20 using the alley as a late-night shortcut into York Road. She said: "Over four years our human rights have been taken away from us. "We have not used our back garden for years because of the language coming= =20 from the bar, the smell of drugs and the sound of people vomiting." On two occasions she had found syringes in the alley, and they had endured= =20 repeated late-night noise. Mr Skipper, who had been served a noise abatement notice by the borough=20 council, told magistrates that when he took over the old St George's Tavern= =20 it was his dream to turn it into an art gallery and bar. "I have never intended upsetting neighbours. I have soundproofed the walls= =20 and do my best to keep the noise down," he said. "I started selling cannabis to open up the debate. The law needs to be=20 challenged, but I will work within the law now."
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