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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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Australia: Coffee Pot - Drugs On The Menu At Five City Cafes Adam Harvey And Heather Gilmore Age, The (Australia) Tuesday 13 Jun 2000 Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jun 2000 Source: Age, The (Australia) Author: Adam Harvey And Heather Gilmore COFFEE POT: DRUGS ON THE MENU AT FIVE CITY CAFES STAFF in five cafes are openly dealing in drugs in the Kings Cross cafe strip, flouting the law as a national drug summit opens in Sydney today. A Daily Telegraphinvestigation has found the outlets include two new cafes where customers can buy cannabis as easily as coffee. The establishments are just 200m from the site of the State Government's proposed heroin injecting room and about 100m from the Kings Cross police station. Frustrated police, who make about one drug-related arrest in the area each day, have moved to use new laws aimed at closing unauthorised brothels as a way of stemming the area's drug trade. On the eve of the Australian Drug Summit 2000, four days of observation by The Daily Telegraph has found: Drug sales inside the Piccolo Bar, Cafe Amsterdam and the Cafe Elysee. The staff of two new businesses - Cafe 7 and the Bliss House Cafe - also sell cannabis. One staff member at the Bliss House boasted to a Daily Telegraph reporter that sales in the cafe will gross $1 million in its first year of trading. The Daily Telegraph watched customers hand cash to staff members and, in exchange, receive plastic bags holding green leaf. Customers of each cafe have told The Daily Telegraph they believed they were buying marijuana and allowed The Daily Telegraphto photograph their purchases of bags containing cannabis head. The Kings Cross police drug unit is aware that drugs are still sold inside several Roslyn St cafes. "The Piccolo (Piccolo Bar), Elysses and The Amsterdam, they are obviously cafes frequented by backpackers and tourists who feel quite comfortable smoking cannabis there," the unit's head Sgt John Maricic said. "[Cannabis] is still a prohibited drug and people are committing a crime by using it, but obviously heroin and powdered drugs, like cocaine, are our priority." Sgt Maricic said that in the past two years his drug unit had arrested 436 people charged with 1013 offences such as drug supply, armed robberies and break and enters, and seized $2.3 million in cash. Sgt Maricic said police were now looking at other ways to stop drug dealing from inside the cafes. "We are going to look at the disorderly houses legislation," he said. "It's an ongoing problem and with the Olympics coming up we want to make the area as safe as possible." Last July, Police Commissioner Peter Ryan asked the NSW Supreme Court to have Cafe Amsterdam declared a "disorderly house". But the case has stalled as the Crown Solicitor waits on evidence from police. The Daily Telegraph watched drug dealing inside the five cafes. At the Bliss House Cafe, in Ward Ave, just off Roslyn St, barely one cup of coffee an hour was made and over a two-hour period last week, The Daily Telegraph observed 19 people walk past the little-used espresso machine and ascend a spiral staircase to a dark loft, each leaving within one minute. There, The Daily Telegraph watched two customers ask for "smoke" and buy small bags of marijuana from a man who keeps his stash of the drug inside his beanie. A police spokesman said was suspected of drug offences, and Bliss House Cafe was suspected of being used for both cannabis and heroin dealing.
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