TLC, home of the Jungle Boys, was raided by law enforcement over $66,000—which the collective had already disputed, and had a hearing date for.
Credit: LMC YouTube Channel
Tuesday night saw one of Los Angeles’s most storied dispensaries have a rough run-in with law enforcement and The California Department of Tax and Fee Administration.
TLC is famously the headquarters of the Jungle Boys. They are one of the premier examples of urban farmers bootstrapping their way to success in the modern cannabis industry, which has seen so many tragically fall short and have to sell a piece, or sell out completely. So as one of the culture’s best success stories in a world of corporate dogs, the community was pissed to see what they had to go through last night.
Why? Because we’ve watched them jump through every hoop that’s ever existed for the legal cannabis market in L.A. and maintain a quality that is better than most. While some would say, “Well, this is legal cannabis,” in regards to the raid, and wouldn’t be wrong, those with a bit more hope in their hearts would be pissed to see someone who’s done so well up to this point be treated like this.
So what happened? We talked with Ivan from the Jungle Boys to find out.
“At five o’clock in the evening, we’re all sitting inside of the shop. It’s the first of the month so we’re paying all our bills,” Ivan told High Times. “We look up at the camera and see one car, two cars, three cars, four cars, and are like ‘holy shit, they must be chasing someone inside of our building,’ you know? We watched them come up and my first thought was either they’re chasing someone inside of our building or someone that worked for us maybe has a warrant or something.”
As they started to watch the employees get corralled by law enforcement, they realized the situation was quickly turning into something else. Ivan explained the shock of that moment, “We started seeing a round-up of all our employees into the front lobby area and were like, ‘are we fucking raided?’”
He immediately jumped on the line with his lawyer as he looked at the cameras. He then explained what happened next, “Right next to the office, two cops come with guns on us, put them in our face, tell us to get to the fucking ground, this is basically a raid, and we’re like what the fuck?” Ivan spent the first hour presuming someone had really screwed up somewhere to cause this kind of event at the shop.
To Read The Rest Of This Article By Jimi Devine on High Times Magazine
Published: March o3, 2022
Founder & Interim Editor of L.A. Cannabis News
