The northlondonhippy

Reporter Miles God­frey vis­ited an alleged cannabis café in Lanc­ing raided by offi­cers only last week and found a steely deter­mi­na­tion to defy the authorities.

Offi­cers smashed their way into the build­ing in Fresh­brook Road, Lanc­ing, on Octo­ber 11 using a two-tonne tractor.

They demol­ished a wall as they ripped a win­dow from its frame and allegedly caused about £20,000 dam­age to the build­ing and its interior.

How­ever in a show of defi­ance, the café’s oper­a­tors have rebuilt the wall, for­ti­fied the build­ing and reopened for busi­ness in under five days.

The Argus gained exclu­sive access to the café and inspected the new defences. They include:

# Mil­i­tary razor wire.

# Rein­forced steel gird­ers used as height-restriction bar­ri­ers to pre­vent tall vehi­cles gain­ing access.

# Steel posts and concrete-filled tyres sur­round­ing the building.

A spokesman for the owner, who did not want to be iden­ti­fied, said: “We are back up and run­ning. We were within days of the police raid.”

The peo­ple who run the café, which has also been fully repaired and redec­o­rated inside, claimed the police’s “heavy-handed”

One said: “We don’t believe they did a proper health and safety check before the raid.

They have claimed that the build­ing had a steel struc­ture but it doesn’t. It could have eas­ily col­lapsed com­pletely with every­one inside it.

“As it was, peo­ple did get minor injuries, bumps and bruises and one woman suf­fered an asthma attack. We are wor­ried about what tac­tics the police are going to use next.”

Those inside the build­ing said they were hor­ri­fied when offi­cers pulled down the wall.

One said: “It was like some­thing out of a Bruce Willis film.

Some­body could have eas­ily been very badly hurt or even killed.”

Police said they found a “quan­tity” of cannabis dur­ing the raid. Those at the café claim less than four grammes was dis­cov­ered, an amount they said did not war­rant the raid.

The spokesman said: “The police caused about £20,000 dam­age inside and out dur­ing the oper­a­tion. They employed numer­ous offi­cers, hired a trac­tor and for what? They only found four grammes of cannabis so what was the point?”

Offi­cers also found £2,000 in cash on the premises dur­ing the raid. The spokesman said the money was from the till and fruit machine and the rest belonged to four dif­fer­ent people.

A strict over-18s pol­icy remains in force and staff said they oper­ated a strict ban on alcohol.

The raid was the lat­est in a series of bat­tles police have had with sim­i­lar businesses.

Offi­cers have car­ried out a series of raids across Wor­thing and Lanc­ing in the last few years as out­lets allegedly sell­ing cannabis have sprung up.

Many raids have been suc­cess­ful but oth­ers, like the one on Octo­ber 11 in Lanc­ing, turned up only small quan­ti­ties of cannabis.

In August, 2005, more than 40 police offi­cers were involved in a dra­matic siege at premises in Vic­to­ria Road, Wor­thing. The offi­cers, includ­ing a dozen riot police, forced their way through two 6in-thick rein­forced doors using steel-cutting welders and a bat­ter­ing ram.

About 30 peo­ple were marched out­side after police smashed their way into the build­ing, which sub­se­quently closed.

There were raids at the now closed Quan­tum Leaf and Bongchuffa cannabis cafés in Row­lands Road, Wor­thing, in 2003. Pro-cannabis cam­paigner Chris Bald­win ran the Quan­tum Leaf café as a “polit­i­cal state­ment” and in Jan­u­ary, 2004, received a six-month jail sen­tence for sup­ply­ing cannabis.

He served just over six weeks behind bars.

The alleged cannabis café in Fresh­brook Road has also been raided before.

In July this year, offi­cers smashed their way into the build­ing using a bat­ter­ing ram.

How­ever they recov­ered only small qual­i­ties of the drug.

Thick black smoke was spot­ted ris­ing from the premises dur­ing that raid and the most recent one.

Offi­cers believe it may have been cannabis being burnt inside but they have been unable to secure enough evi­dence to bring charges.

Chief Inspec­tor Lawrence Hobbs, Adur dis­trict police com­man­der, said police did not want to rush in. He said: “It is early days. We want to gather some evi­dence, seek some legal advice and lis­ten to how the com­mu­nity want us to deal with it. I do not sense there’s any phys­i­cal threat to residents.”

How­ever, since Feb­ru­ary when police first sus­pected the build­ing was being for drug smok­ing, his stance has tough­ened significantly.

He was unapolo­getic about the dam­age and said: “There has to be recog­ni­tion that these types of ille­gal enter­prises will not be tolerated.”

The lat­est raid was cer­tainly the most dra­matic but it may not be the last.