Lancing cannabis café closed for good (From The Argus)
Get involved: Send your news, views, pictures and video by texting SUPIC to 80360 or email us.
Lancing cannabis café closed for good
4:49pm Sunday 16th August 2009 in
Residents blighted by a cannabis café on their doorstep are celebrating after it was permanently shut down.
A judge has ordered the building, in Freshbrook Road, Lancing, to be closed to everyone until November.
Solicitors acting for the people running the café appealed against an earlier three-month closure notice under the Antisocial Behaviour Act.
Instead of overturning the original decision, the judge hearing the appeal extended the closure order for another three months.
Between the original closure order and the appeal, a private eviction order brought to court by a mortgage company was granted meaning the building is finally rid of those associated with running it as a cannabis café.
Chief Inspector James Asser, divisional commander for Adur, said: “We met with residents to tell them it had finally closed for good.
“The pictures speak a thousand words. Getting people to public meetings is quite difficult sometimes but we had quite a number there.
“The cannabis café has been a blight on their life for two years now so they were ecstatic.”
The café, which was labelled by Ch Insp Asser as the most fortified in Britain, has been the target of numerous raids with officers once using a tractor to pull the side of the building down to get in.
Comments(32)
chrisbrighton
says...
5:32pm Sun 16 Aug 09
jakiB
says...
5:35pm Sun 16 Aug 09
bibble
says...
5:43pm Sun 16 Aug 09
Harry Callahan
says...
6:24pm Sun 16 Aug 09
bibble wrote:9 raids, no drugs found in any raid apart from a very small personal use amount, my guess would be that more than what was found could be found in any pub/club in the area or dare I say it even in the police canteen!!!!!.
And how many of those "numerous raids" resulted in any drugs being found? Answer that, Chief Inspector Asser.
Tye
says...
8:07pm Sun 16 Aug 09
bibble wrote:You've been found out
And how many of those "numerous raids" resulted in any drugs being found? Answer that, Chief Inspector Asser.
You are a troll for the BNP
Redbeard
says...
8:25pm Sun 16 Aug 09
bibble
says...
8:34pm Sun 16 Aug 09
Tye wrote:Wrong.
bibble wrote: And how many of those "numerous raids" resulted in any drugs being found? Answer that, Chief Inspector Asser.You've been found out You are a troll for the BNP
lorrie2
says...
8:46pm Sun 16 Aug 09
Harry Callahan
says...
9:29pm Sun 16 Aug 09
lorrie2 wrote:Quite right, as a doorman I would rather a club full of weed smokers than alcohol drinkers any day!, I also have a friend that lives in Freshbrook road Lancing and he didn't even know the alleged cannabis cafe existed until old bill started to make a pain in the butt of themselves!!!!.
It should be legal, like someone else said id rather live next to that than a pub, how many pot heads do you see fighting on fri-sat nights none. most if not all antisocial behaviour is caused by alcohol and thats perfectly legal, somethings wrong somewhere
VoodooGangbanger
says...
10:15pm Sun 16 Aug 09
I hardly ever drink cause that's a depressant it just darkens your mood makes you violent and uninhibited.
And I refuse to smoke tobbaco because that messes you up too, but weed is perfectly fine, hell when I have kids id rather them smoke weed then tobbaco or drink excessively.
jyan
says...
11:13pm Sun 16 Aug 09
Tony_42
says...
11:32pm Sun 16 Aug 09
This guy has never been to a pub at closing time. Britain has turned into a fascist regime. Anybody who supports prohibition after seeing the high profile US and Mexico failures is either stupid, corrupt, a religious fundamentalist, or an ideologue. There are not enough prisons in the world to hold all the peaceful pot smokers.
Tony_42
says...
11:33pm Sun 16 Aug 09
This guy has never been to a pub at closing time. Britain has turned into a fascist regime. Anybody who supports prohibition after seeing the high profile US and Mexico failures is either stupid, corrupt, a religious fundamentalist, or an ideologue. There are not enough prisons in the world to hold all the peaceful pot smokers.
Tony_42
says...
11:37pm Sun 16 Aug 09
This guy has never been to a pub at closing time. Britain has turned into a fascist regime. Anybody who supports prohibition after seeing the high profile US and Mexico failures is either stupid, corrupt, a religious fundamentalist, or an ideologue. There are not enough prisons in the world to hold all the peaceful pot smokers.
communitycriminal
says...
12:32am Mon 17 Aug 09
They have taken a secure and from the sounds of it well run private place were they could easly see who used and bought cannabis in favour of children dealing and obtaining cannabis behind closed doors, you really have to ask who has the long term saftey of your children at heart.
John Steed
says...
12:41am Mon 17 Aug 09
these high profile raids which have resulted in nothing have served a PR purpose only, which depending on your point of veiw has bought derision on the police. It begins to reek of a personal vendetta rather that good solid policing.
I have a feeling that this is not the end of the story
sheffjohn
says...
2:58am Mon 17 Aug 09
Variable
says...
9:28am Mon 17 Aug 09
But if the police think they've shut the operation down they are deluded. They have just moved it somewhere else, and wasted tens of thousands of pounds of our money in the process.
so maybe the cafe crew will open up somewhere with no neighbours to annoy. Then we'll see whether the police are 'responding to local concerns' or carrying out an expensive and pointless PR stunt.
RickH
says...
9:48am Mon 17 Aug 09
scoomber
says...
3:53pm Mon 17 Aug 09
You posted the same comment 3 times. Short term memory problems?? ;-)
Tye
says...
4:42pm Mon 17 Aug 09
scoomber wrote:he keeps changing his name so IF he can manage that on his electric computer I'm sure he could manage to post just the once unless ofcourse you are correct about the grass
Tony_42: You posted the same comment 3 times. Short term memory problems?? ;-)
PS Whatever happened to those signs in Brighton parks - keep off the grass?
Richard Gurner
says...
4:47pm Mon 17 Aug 09
jakiB wrote:Typo amended. Apologies for that.
'The café, which was labelled by Ch Insp Asser as the most fortified in Briton....' Surely it should be Britain? A Briton is a person not a place!
Tony_42
says...
5:04pm Mon 17 Aug 09
scoomber wrote:Sorry it's my first time on the sight:)
Tony_42:
You posted the same comment 3 times. Short term memory problems?? ;-)
Short term memory problems? Are you a prohibitionist? Cause prohibitionists grasp at those kinds of straws to maintain the status quo. Please give me your prohibition rationale. I eagerly await the mountain of evidence that demonstrates how society benefits from prohibition. And FYI, I have already seen your "reefer madness" video so save it. Maybe I should post this multiple times to give you some ammo. LOL! Same goes for you Tye! LOL!
Ignorance is the new enemy.
thomasheadley
says...
5:35pm Mon 17 Aug 09
And now Labour are adding 'Spice' to their meaningless ABC list, in an attempt to appear tough on crime..Pathetic.
scoomber
says...
8:52am Tue 18 Aug 09
Tony_42 wrote:Not a prohibitionist, quite the opposite really. Never used drugs, never want to, but have been with others who have done so many times and prefer stoned people or loved up ravers to agressive drunks. Don't smoke and rarely drink too - get my highs on fast bikes (track days) and throwing myself out of perfectly good aeroplanes thanks.
scoomber wrote: Tony_42: You posted the same comment 3 times. Short term memory problems?? ;-)Sorry it's my first time on the sight:) Short term memory problems? Are you a prohibitionist? Cause prohibitionists grasp at those kinds of straws to maintain the status quo. Please give me your prohibition rationale. I eagerly await the mountain of evidence that demonstrates how society benefits from prohibition. And FYI, I have already seen your "reefer madness" video so save it. Maybe I should post this multiple times to give you some ammo. LOL! Same goes for you Tye! LOL! Ignorance is the new enemy.
Everything we do to ourselves is bad anyway - processed ham gives you cancer is the latest scare I saw on the BBC website - shouldn't that be prohibited too?
I feel that if someone wants to poison themselves or take risks, let them. Life is for living and with the numbers of "recreational" drug takers apparently being so high, all this prohibition is doing is giving vicious criminals profits and missing out on a big tax gathering opportunity (Can't have it all ways!! lol) which could be used for treatment and education for those who want it (Much the same way as smokers indirectly fund the NHS)
Decriminalisation and regulation would mean that users would at least get a measured dosage of "clean" stuff, rather than risking all the rubbish dealers cut it with now.
Glad you took the comment in the spirit it was offered in! (",)
Tony_42
says...
1:08pm Tue 18 Aug 09
I do not live in Lancing and I wonder if anybody could confirm or deny Mr. Loughton's claim's because fear mongering and disinformation are often used by prohibitionists to justify their actions as they try to score votes. Was it that bad? He describes a war zone.
Harry Callahan
says...
4:30pm Tue 18 Aug 09
Tony_42 wrote:No it was nowhere near this bad, in fact it was not bad at all, the cafe shut at 20:00 (8pm), didn't open on sundays at all, the CCTV installation was put in of the safety of customers and residents and in actual fact according to a local copper crime and anti social behavior DROPPED whist the cafe was running, and as for anti social, criminal behavior, it was one of the residents of Freshbrook road that destroyed one of the CCTV cameras (silly really as he was seen on another camera doing it) and very nearly ended up with a criminal record (but for the kindness of the company that leases the CCTV system to the cafe who as I believe excepted payment for the damage instead of pressing charges).
My apologies scoomber, the "war on drugs" has diminished my sense of humor as I watch people being harmed by politicians as the gangs and violence increase while low level users and addicts are thrown in jail and my children have access to more hard drugs because of the under ground market. When I asked Tim Loughton to consider the harm this "war" is doing he blew me off with insults saying that residence of Lancing, and I quote "have been the subject of death threats, accosted by strangers in the street threatening to fire bomb their houses, been afraid to leave their homes, had their children find needles and white powder in their gardens, had their homes blighted with several trying to sell up and escape, lived next to an eyesore death trap and had CCTV cameras recording their every move."
I do not live in Lancing and I wonder if anybody could confirm or deny Mr. Loughton's claim's because fear mongering and disinformation are often used by prohibitionists to justify their actions as they try to score votes. Was it that bad? He describes a war zone.
If you want to see the cafe for yourself go to "www.holeinthewallca
fe.co.uk"
UglyAmerican
says...
7:13pm Tue 18 Aug 09
I'm sure if they had taken up pitchforks & torches they could have surely handled this themselves.
Tony_42
says...
8:58pm Tue 18 Aug 09
bigduff
says...
10:13pm Thu 20 Aug 09
sheffjohn wrote:hear! hear!
I would Just like to say that cannabis is not the demon that everybody seems to think. I used cannabis to help me kick a crack addiction 5 years ago, and thanks to marijuana I have never looked back, I have also used it to help me stop smoking tobaco. I haven't smoked a cigarette for 2 years now! I smoke weed every day, and have done for the last ten years. (I am 27 now) I have no health problems, mental or physical. I am currently studdying for a psychology degree, and I work full time, and here comes the big one- I'M HAPPY. So if cannabis is so bad, how am i capable of getting good grades in degree level work, and being a fully functioning, contributing member of society, i certainly wouldn't have been when i was smoking crack, or if I had ever been alcoholic. The people of lancing want to try living in a student area of sheffield, every night my neighbours end up either being woken up, or having the wing mirror smashed off their car by some **** up student, who has been getting irresponibly tanked up in one, or all of the 6 pubs within a hundredmeters from my house. Cannabis is a much safer hassle free alternative. I'm not against pubs and people drinking booze, but it is obvious that cannabis is better for a person than alcohol.
Exile4eva
says...
2:56pm Tue 25 Aug 09
Prohibition does not stop people taking cannabis and does not stop dealers selling it - it just puts ALL of the profits from it in the hands of the criminals and pushes the prices of cannabis higher and higher (cannabis is sold for more than gold ounce for ounce).
So well done Lancing. You guys have kinda screwed yourself royally this time.
And a final thought. Look through all of the comments left... I don't see many people shouting and cheering with joy.. in fact quite the opposite. And as for the people in the photo, well, it's not hard to get a group of local residents to pose for a photograph if they think they'll be in the local newspaper. I'll bet the majority of them know nothing about cannabis at all (let alone there was a coffeeshop nearby - of even what a coffeeshop is/does), aside from the scaremongering the police and government seem to be shoveling down our throats on a daily basis.
A sad day for freedom.
More News stories
- UPDATE: Snow expected to hit Sussex tonight
- Forty crimes a month near police stations
- Car destroyed in garage blaze
- Tickets going on sale for Liverpool v Albion
- Lucky Albion ticket winners revealed
- Jury in Brighton shooting return lawful killling verdict
- £80m city plan revived
- Tesco plans new store in Shoreham
- East Grinstead jewellers raided by gang on mopeds
- Eastbourne murderer gets life
Residents celebrate with Chief Inspector James Asser and MP Tim Loughton at the closure of the cannabis café in Lancing.
Most popular
Local Information
Enter your postcode, town or place name
Tye says...
5:00pm Sun 16 Aug 09
better than living next to a pub frequented by "Young people"