Part owner of a Black-owned marijuana dispensary was recently online telling donors to his shop’s online fundraiser to bring the donations by. Karanja Crew’s Portland dispensary was recently vandalized and burglarized within a week. The GoFundMe he was using to raise money to cover his losses was taken down because it was raising money for a marijuana business which is not federally legal.
The Green Muse dispensary on Northeast 16th Avenue and Northeast Killingsworth was vandalized with a racist symbol left on the porch. A week ago, someone was caught on camera lighting something on fire on the porch of the business. There was also a symbol of a cross inside a circle left of the porch. The symbol can be used to mean white supremacy.
In addition to the vandalism, on last Thursday morning, all of their products was stolen. Crews said the criminals broke the safe and stole everything out of it. They are now trying to make up for the $35,000 loss.
Crews said police were called on both incidents. He said he hopes the community can come together and help his small business recover. There was a fundraiser outside his dispensary on Saturday, Oct. 1.
Crews told local media that he thinks his business is being watched. Crew’s said, “I was thinking that we’re a target,” Crews said. “I was starting to feel that we’re being watched. I had a feeling that once this happened that people had been watching.”
The timing is terrible because the dispensary just cancelled it’s insurance. “Business insurance is very expensive,” Crews said. “We had to cut that expense do to the recession and lost sales. We had to cut it last month, so we’re not covered for this particular month so it’s a loss.”
