Michelle and Doug Sikora said they’ve been overwhelmed with the support from the community surrounding their case and hope that their fight will show those in similar situations that they can stand up to authorities.
After serving two RCMP officers last week on contempt of court, the Sikoras, who run an edibles operation on the Sunshine Coast, travelled to Vancouver to do the same to the crown prosecutor, all of whom will be back in court Aug. 31.
Doug Sikora said that the couple served the prosecutor twice, once for the contempt of court and again for charter infringement over stipulations put in place over the couple’s work van.
“When we were in court it was spoken between us and the prosecutor about covering up the logo of the S&M Sweet Shoppe logo on the van and taking off the website design, there was no timeframe they gave us they never said how fast we had to do it but we complied right away and covered it up,” Sikora said.
After serving the two officers last week, the Sikoras had police at their home taking pictures of their van, which they had since redecaled with generic “medical cannabis” branding.
Sikora said he wants to take the prosecutor back to court in part to ensure that the couple can’t be seen as violating a court order for advertising on their van that was never expressly put into writing.
He said he took photos of the police on their property which he sent to the office of Sechelt mayor Bruce Milne.
“We sent an email to the mayor right away because of what he had said back in May about police stopping to waste taxpayers’ money on investigating marijuana issues,” Sikora said.
Attending a farmers market in Roberts Creek this weekend, Sikora said the level of support he received from strangers following the case makes him think the decision will be an important one.
This case we’re doing, it’s going to be history,” Sikora said. “It’s going to help out a lot of people thatthis has been done to and don’t have the knowledge or the money to fight back.”
“This is hopefully going to give a lot of people the courage to stand up for their rights because those cops have to abide by the laws and, if they don’t, there’s consequences that they’ll have to suffer.”
Sikora said supporters can visit their website or Facebook page and help get the message out to the community.