Stores sold pot, cigarettes to kids: police

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This article was published 02/02/2024 (945 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The owner of three grocery stores and two of her employees have been charged after age-restricted cannabis products and cigarettes were allegedly sold to children.

Winnipeg police said Friday the three were arrested following an investigation that began in September after area residents told police minors were buying cannabis and cigarettes at local stores.

Police said officers inspected several stores between Sept. 6 and Jan. 19 and identified three stores: in the 700 block of Sargent Avenue, 600 block of Westminster Avenue and 800 block of Talbot Avenue. Police said age-restricted cannabis and tobacco products were openly displayed to the public, including minors, at the stores.

Police also found cartons of illegal cigarettes and cannabis in the stores.

Arrest warrants were issued for the owner of the stores, who was out of the country at the time, and two employees at the Sargent Avenue store.

Harpreet Mangat, 41, was arrested Tuesday when she returned to Winnipeg. She is charged with 30 offences, including selling cannabis and accessories that appeal to minors and selling unmarked cigarettes.

A 25-year-old man and 23-year-old man were charged Jan. 8 with possessing cannabis for the purpose of selling and promoting the sale of tobacco in a place where children are allowed.

This is not the first time Mangat has been before the court on charges involving contraband cigarettes. In 2021, she was fined $7,500 and ordered to pay a tax penalty of $28,000 after Manitoba Finance investigators found 32,000 untaxed cigarettes in the car she had been driving.

Court was told Mangat, a director of two numbered companies that owned several inner-city convenience stores, and her husband, had been the target of investigations involving the distribution of contraband cigarettes dating back to 2019.

“In my view, it is clear that Ms. Mangat is involved… in the ongoing sale of the cigarettes from the various stores owned by the numbered corporations that she is a director of,” prosecutor Sean Sass told court at her Oct. 25, 2021, sentencing hearing.

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca