CLOSING SHOP

Threatened with closure, The Hemp Shop may be forced to move. Talking today with the owner, Bobby Pugh, it turns out he is locked out over a pittance, after having just made the arrears of £10,500 in December.

The abrupt padlocking is a strange move, especially given the fact that the lease is being sold on, with money coming in the pipeline; further, a deposit for an amount far greater than that owed is in hand. So why the heavy handed tactics?

Bobby informs me he has felt hassled for years at this location. The landlord, a man with deep religious beliefs, seems to have taken a dislike to hemp, perhaps on the assumption that the American dogma of hemp being cousin to dope is a fact. It certainly is not, and for anyone with a Judeo-Christian belief, this nonsense has to be trod under foot as a dangerous heresy. To add irony to heresy, the shop was in fact being looked at by a sex chain, and if their paperwork does in deed come through, the landlord, Dr. A.D. Gibb, will be legally obligated to open the doors to all kinds of interesting spirits in rubber outfits. Not sure this is what he wants. But sometimes the stubborn shoot themselves in the foot, as was the case in 1937 when the US hindered farmers from growing hemp due to the absurd preaching of William Randolph Hearst.

For more info, contact Bobby Pugh directly at 07971 275 150.