Another cannabis store torched

The Sweet Grass cannabis dispensary on Route 344 burned down Wednesday morning, with witness accounts suggesting a likely arson, according to the Oka fire chief.

“I’m kind of pissed. It’s not cool,” said owner Normand Theoret, adding he has no intention of rebuilding the shop. “It is what it is.” Theoret, a truck driver, told The Eastern Door he was not involved in managing the store and had rented it out.

He declined to specify to whom he had rented the business.

According to Oka fire chief Sylvain Johnson, it was the first arson of 2025 in Kanesatake, not including a home on Kanesatake Mohawk Territory in the Oka village that was targeted by arsonists more than 10 times before the lot was finally cleared.

But the latest incident comes on the heels of more than 25 fires - not all necessarily criminal - recorded in 2024, part of a spasm of terror in a community long plagued by arson.

The latest blaze, resulting in a total loss of Sweet Grass, comes less than two weeks after the cancellation of the Mohawk Council of Kanesatake (MCK) elections hurtled the community into deeper political chaos.

Political tensions defined the latest term of Council, with Quebec’s Indigenous affairs minister Ian Lafrenière, a former police officer, telling The Eastern Door as early as April 2023 that he worried political instability could create an opening for organized crime, already a well-known problem on the territory - one often associated with some cannabis stores.

“For years, we’ve watched leadership turn a blind eye while criminal interests entrench themselves deeper into our territory, using ‘economic opportunity’ as the mask for control and intimidation,” said community member Lisa Gibson.

“We deserve leaders with the courage to take a stand, enforce our laws, and restore peace before more lives are lost.”

At this time last summer, there had been 10 suspected criminal blazes in Kanesatake, already more than the previous six years combined, with the Oka fire chief telling The Eastern Door at the time that there seemed to be a war going on in the Kanesatake cannabis market.

Arsons in recent years have repeatedly targeted cannabis dispensaries, including Planet 344 last August. There was no investigation in that fire, deemed suspicious, due to an uncooperative owner, according to the SQ at the time.

As of last August, there had been no charges laid in any arson in Kanesatake for at least the previous seven years. The SQ was unable to provide an update on this number by deadline.

“In Kanesatake, we’ve already had an assassination, shootouts, and countless incidents that screamed ‘shut it all down!’ - yet here we are again, with another act of extreme violence,” said Gibson, who compared the current situation to tensions in Akwesasne about casinos in the late 1980s.

“Until we face the reality that violence, greed, and fear are driving too much of what happens here, nothing will change. And silence will only guarantee that it gets worse,” said Gibson, voicing a concern that many Kanesatake residents have shared with The Eastern Door, often anonymously or off the record.

“We live with this reality every day. Too many store owners claim to be successful entrepreneurs, but in truth they’ve teamed up with organized crime. They bring their associates, their problems, and their turf wars into our community, while disregarding the safety and voices of those of us who want nothing to do with it,” Gibson said.

Theoret told The Eastern Door organized crime was not implicated in his store.

“If it was organized crime it would have been way bigger. I would have had gas pumps, security, a double-sized building, but it wasn’t,” he said.

“I’m one of the shops that don’t have much security because it’s a little shop. We’re not making millions.”

He didn’t appreciate the police’s questions following the fire, he said.

“They’re asking me a million questions. I told them fuck off and do your job, if it’s arsonists do your job and find the person who lit it. Why am I getting questioned?” he said, adding it was almost like they were accusing him of doing it himself.

“They’re asking me if I’m involved with gangs. I’m like hey, don’t start this shit. Do your investigation, get your shit, and get the fuck off my territory. Go back down to the village where you fucking belong.”

The lot on which the store was located is among the lots swept up in Quebec’s injunction against illegal dumping. Theoret, who brought in streams of trucks carrying landfill to make what he called swampland buildable, is named as a defendant in the civil case.

“I’m in court with the land, so I can’t even sell it,” said Theoret, objecting to Quebec saying the land is contaminated and objecting to the idea that the government has a say in something like cutting trees on the shoreline on Mohawk territory.

“Whatever fine they’re going to give me they’re going to stick it up their ass,” he said.

It wasn’t the first time the store has been damaged. A witness told The Eastern Door in November that they heard gunfire moments after a car drove into the shop around 5 a.m., a version of events Theoret denies.

The SQ investigation into that incident is still ongoing.

According to Kane Montour, coordinator of Kanesatake Perimeter Security, who responded to the blaze on Wednesday morning, the power was out in the neighbourhood at the time of the fire. He said it is the third or fourth time power has been shut off in the area followed by reports of suspicious vehicles with their lights off in the area.

As for the fire itself, the blaze was strong by the time he arrived to offer assistance as KPS coordinator.

“There wasn’t any saving it, that’s for sure. The fire was too big. The whole thing was right up in flames,” he said.

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Marcus Bankuti, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter