[420 Girl]

When police raided the Kindred Café Nov. 20 for allegedly trafficking marijuana, it shone a spotlight on one of the city's biggest open secrets.

There are places where you can smoke weed with relative impunity, provided you don't make a scene.

With a couple of well-known pot cafés and a smattering of private smokers' clubs – not to mention a thriving network of bong shops and hemp stores – Toronto's marijuana scene rivals Vancouver's, according to some herb aficionados.

Most of the action centres on "Yongesterdam," a strip of Yonge St. near Wellesley St. nicknamed after pot-friendly Amsterdam.

Each summer, pot activist Matt Mernagh leads a weekly tour of the area's cannabis community, showing off what he considers one of the city's untapped tourist attractions.

The tour starts at Vapor Central, a vaporizer store and "tester lounge," then on to various seed and hemp stores. If the group feels particularly energetic, Mernagh says, they'll hit the Hot Box Café in Kensington Market, famous for its backyard "potio."

The café is among a handful of establishments in the city that allow customers to smoke weed, though owner Abi Roach stresses they don't sell it in any form.

Another is the Kindred, on Breadalbane St., which reopened days after its owner, Dominic Cramer, turned himself in to police on Nov. 24. Cramer is scheduled to appear in court Jan. 13.

Both the Hot Box and the Kindred regulate pot smoking on the premises, limiting it to adults in specific areas. But despite the Kindred's official mission to host medicinal marijuana use, neither venue requires customers to show their government-issued licences.

Which makes it technically illegal, as indicated in the cafés and on their websites. So how come they still exist?

Police rely heavily on complaints, so if no one complains about a particular spot, it may never be discovered, said Det. Sgt. Paul MacIntyre of the Toronto Police drug squad.

Once officers become aware of such a place, they have to investigate – and arrest anyone found to possess marijuana, he said. But that doesn't mean the venue will close.

"If the people who own the business aren't involved in the sale or distribution of drugs, they won't be charged," MacIntyre said. At the homey three-year-old Kindred, business has fallen by about a third since the raid, said spokesperson Chad Cooke.

Its main floor, where marijuana smoking is not permitted, was empty early on a recent Friday evening. So was its stylish second-floor private room, appointed with flat-screen TVs, DVDs and vaporizers.

On its tented rooftop third floor, where smokers can congregate for a fee of $5 – $2.50 for people with medical exemptions – three patrons sat quietly on the folding chairs Cooke bought after the police took the café's furniture. "We're not quite as busy as we were before," he said. "I'm sure some people are a little apprehensive about coming, not knowing exactly what the climate's going to be or if the police are going to come back."

Lawyer Alan Young, who represents Cramer and the Kindred, says police often turn a blind eye when it comes to recreational tokers.

"The sole reason these cafés can operate with some degree of impunity is that marijuana possession is one of the lowest priorities with police," Young said.

Though federal law doesn't specify where licensed users can and can't light up, they receive an information package warning them not to smoke in a public place or expose others to second-hand smoke, Heath Canada spokesperson Philippe Laroche said in an email.

But there's little health inspectors can do, since the province's smoking ban applies only to tobacco products, said Rob Colvin, spokesperson for Toronto Public Health.

Mernagh says tourists are often shocked and amazed to see others openly flouting marijuana laws inside a coffee shop or store.

"People like us because we're so out of the cannabis closet."

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