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Cannabis Campaigners' Guide News Database result:
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UK: We're to stay, says the cannabis cafe
Dianne Bourne Metro News, Manchester
Friday 11 Jan 2002 The Dutch business partner in the UK's first cannabis cafe has issued the rally cry: "We're here to stay." Nol Van Schaik, co-owner of the Dutch Experience in Stockport, said if they were forced to move from Hooper Street they would just find somewhere else. "We are doing something that is not according to the law, but I don't see it as illegal. "In the back room here everyone is smoking joints. The police could come every day and arrest people, but they don't. "They seem to come just when it pleases them, or when there is media interest in the coffee shop.To me that is neglect of their duty." Within hours of Metro News going to press last week, with a front page story on The Dutch Experience's burgeoning trade, police raided the coffee shop and made three arrests. They included volunteer bookkeeper Robin Wright, arrested for holding a key to the coffee shop, and having rates, council tax and telephone bills for the shop. Police also raided the shop in November, four days after Metro News reported how The Dutch Experience was packed with cannabis smokers from across the country. Cafe co-owner Colin Davies was arrested then and remains on remand in Strangeways on charges of possessing cannabis, possession with intent to supply and permitting premises to be used for smoking cannabis. But Mr Van Schaik, aged 47, in Stockport to face magistrates today on cannabis possession charges, said: "We're here to stay. Even if they managed to get us out of this building we'd just get another." Mr Van Schaik, aged 47, owns three coffee shops in Holland. He added: "This place needs follow-up. We need other places, not just Stockport, to stick their neck out for the cause."
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