Downtown magic mushroom store raided, again

Ward 3 councillor Renaldo Agostino joins Jon Liedtke on AM800 CKLW to discuss downtown's Fun Guyz illegal magic mushroom store being raided again and the state of downtown.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
One that has been coming up frequentlythroughout the news is a business that is
called fun Guys. It is amagic mushroom store in the Core on Olett
Avenue which has been rated yet again, this time a nineteen year old male
has faced drug trafficking charges after thisbust, in which police seized about forty

(00:23):
two thousand dollars worth of psilocybin aswell as twenty four hundred dollars in Canadian
currency. But just like the previousraids that had occurred, no sooner had
the police departed than Fun Guys wasback open in business, including today the
open sign was illuminated. This placehas been rated last July, August and

(00:48):
December, and it's sort of oneof these ongoing things and the question is
what can be done about this business? Does it bother you that it's in
the Core? Joining me to discussis the word three counselor who represents that
area, Rinaldo Augustino, Hey,Ronaldo, how you doing ton Hell?
Are you doing well? Thanks somuch? So? We saw this raid
here again and I think a lotof people are just wondering, like how

(01:11):
does this place keep reopening? Whatcan be done? And I understand.
You know you're not on the lawenforcement side, but you know you're well
involved in the BIA your business,you've been a business owner in the downtown
Corey or the counselor. I mean, what's your thoughts about this one.
Yeah, I'm super involved in this, and you know it's it's it's one
of those things that you can't evencall out a business. To be a
business, you gotta have a businesslicense. So it's something that is not

(01:36):
unique to Windsor. These operations arewell funded, these operations are well they
know what they're doing when it comesto organizing and getting back open and funding
and providing. So this is notsomething that's unique to us. And there's
a lot going on in the backgroundthat I wish I could talk about,

(01:57):
but I can't even talk about thestuff going on the background because they're listening.
They're always looking for that next step, and it's this game of chess
that we're playing with them. Andit's not again, it's not just our
municipality, it's every municipality where they'resetting up, usually in downtown course,
and it's something that you know,it's certainly one of those things that if
it was legal there'd be no issue. But we have a duty as a

(02:21):
city to not allow legal entities tooperate, and we continue to bust them,
and you know, we continue torepresent our people by trying our best
to get this place in order.And if it order means one day that
the government regulates this business and makesit a legitimate business, then that's fine.
That'll happen. But I'm not like, I'm not interested in putting the

(02:44):
car before the horse here or not. It's just something that we need to
really get rid of. You know, they're they're they're pushing things forward,
at least it appears from the outside, and from what I've heard, trying
to do things the way that cannabiswas brought forward, I don't think they're
going to have as much luck gettingit towards recreational status. Maybe a medical
status could be a pathway forward tothem. But again, this isn't really

(03:06):
about the specifics of this business.It's just it's about the fact that it's
crime that is occurring on our streetsand the core inside of an establishment and
what can be done. I wonderI appreciate that there's very little you can
discuss about the proactiveness or the reactionthat the police takes. But I wonder
just, you know, generally,what are some of the conversations that you
have around with your console colleagues aboutthese kind of issues. Well, the

(03:29):
conversation, the real big conversation isis the slime in which it's operated under,
Like we're putting these nineteen year oldkids. Someone's putting these nineteen year
old kid working behind the counter ata lifetime risk because that kid who's working
behind the counter selling this stuff isnow going to have a criminal record,
right, And it's like there's somuch shadiness because it's numbered companies. Nobody

(03:53):
knows who the faith of the ownershipof this establishment is or any of them
for that fact. So it's somethingthat I know that and it's not just
our police that are working on somethinghere, but this is a bigger picture
saying that really needs to be settled. And again I appreciate the fact that
there is a discussion going on inthe medical world that this may be something

(04:13):
that can help people. I'm notcertainly not against that. If that's something
that gets proven and the people withto know, I'll say this is something
that can help people. I'm allon board with that, But what I'm
against is that the almost gangster stylebusiness that this operates under, and it's
something that we need to solve sothat more of these places don't start popping
up again. Yeah, you know, I think back to when illegal cannabis

(04:38):
dispensaries were, you know, poppingup all over the province just before legalization
and afterwards, and it got toa point where, you know, law
enforcement did eventually start to charge thelandlords. And I wonder if we're going
to get to that point with Windsorpolice, and who knows what their operations
are going to be. But youknow, the state of the Core,
it's it's always in constant lux.Rinaldo and I went for a walk yesterday,

(05:02):
you know, and this is it'soff topic, but sort of I
think in the same vein of thingscame across a couple crack pipes that were
on the ground. The situation fora lot of people there still is that
that concern about their safety and comingto the Core. Yeah, this is
it's to be the downtown Windsor counseloris a twenty four to seven, seven
days a week job, and Ican tell you there's not a minute that

(05:25):
I'm not thinking or trying to addresssome of these situations. Nor is there
a minute that I think that overthe past six months or seven months at
the Mayor's office and the city hasnot been doing that as well, because
they're addressing it, and I thinkthat there's going to be I'm sure a
lot of people heard Mayor Jilkins commentsthis morning on A eight hundred. There's
gonna be some some some movement onthat very soon. So I look forward

(05:46):
to really stepping up and addressing someof these issues and creating some solutions a
plan. I wish I didn't haveto do this, because this is there's
no victory in saying, hey,we've got a plan coming look at us.
No, no, no, thisis anot that it should not be
political. There's no championship to this. This is something we need to do
to address to make sure that ourdowntown is safe and revitalized. And I

(06:09):
look forward to being part of thosediscussions that'll be happening at city all very
soon. And you know, we'veseen some pretty significant improvements as well,
including just the green light program throughoutthe core. Yeah, we've seen a
lot of great improvements over the lastyear and a half that I've been doing
this, and we've seen a lotof downsides too. So there's ups and
downs, and there's three steps forward, three steps back, But there's only

(06:30):
one thing that solves it, andit's continue to work hard and never give
up. And that's really the gridof downtown. And it's not just me
as the counselor. It's the businessowners that operate downtown and choose to be
downtown and continue to fight dates byday by day, and to be able
to look across the border and seethe revitalization that our partners in Detroit have
been able to pull off is somethingthat nobody could have imagined whatever happened twenty

(06:56):
years ago. So when people aresay to me, Counselor, you're beating
a dead horses that we're going tohave, no no, no, no
no, there's no quip for us, there's no quick for Downtown Windsor.
It's our downtown and that's something thatwill will continue to work toward. Well,
it'd be remiss if I didn't tryto at least end this segment on
the highest note possible. Here.There is a big event that's taking place
downtown on the twenty seventh of thismonth, which is of course celebrating the

(07:19):
Detroit's hosting the NFL Draft. Canyou tell us about what's going to be
there. Yes, we actually justhad our press conference to announce our concert
lineup. We're doing a free footballclinic put on by the NFL and by
our local football community year spearheaded byDan Hogan and Rob McIntyre at City Hall.
The entire community is invited to comedown and participate in some great NFL

(07:41):
clinics. We're gonna have some NFLplayers down here. There's gonna be free
hot dogs. It's going to bea fantastic event on the lawna City Hall
that starts at noon, it's overat six pm. Then at six pm
we're having a free concert in downtownWindsor where we just announced the lineup.
It's happening between the Park and oLett Streets, right onton Corn front of
Lefty Street House and where Beatles BanquetCenter is. And our lineup includes the

(08:05):
amazing Jody Raffool, a local,great, local, brand new rock band
that's hitting the streets. It's beenreally popular, Hutch and then we're bringing
some Detroit flavor over the border becausewe're really going to showcase our partnership between
Windsor and Detroit. We have DanielHeckx, we have Nissan, who is
who from D twelve Son who's likethe biggest upcoming rapper in the city of

(08:28):
Detroit. And then of course wehave the legendary Shady Records, Eminem's tag
team partner with Bad versus Evil,the huge artist who's been here before,
who's happy to come back and hostand do some thirty five minutes performance with
those guys. Royce the five tonine is going to be here as well.
So we've got a great events happeningon Saturday night, Aprils the twenty

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seventh. It's free. We justask people to register online at www dot
Downtown Windsor dot CA. It's goingto be a full day of festivities celebrating
the weekend festivities that are happy.Name is Toned Detroit and we're so happy
to be partnering with the NFL andthem and all of our great sponsors to
make this avouent happy