cannabisnews.com: On The Road With a Wheeler-Dealer





On The Road With a Wheeler-Dealer
Posted by FoM on September 16, 1999 at 08:31:23 PT
By Arabella Bowen
Source: Montreal Gazette
What do you take with you to work? Probably not a bag of weed. Steve does precisely that, however. At 5 p.m. Monday, as he does four nights each week, he went to the fridge, opened the crisper and took out two bags of dope. Big bags. 
Combined, they contained enough marijuana to fill an empty box of Kellogg's Corn Flakes. "There's about 150 grams in there," he said as he placed it in his knapsack. Then, with his pager already vibrating in his pocket, he walked down the stairs outside his apartment and got on his bike. Steve (not his real name) delivers weed door-to-door on the Plateau. He knows the district's streets as well as a cab-driver does. And he has a customer on virtually every block. "It's not just students, hippies or artists, either," he said, "but professionals and people with families, too." His list contains the names of 300 clients. And an average night will see him make 25 visits. His is a full-scale business operation. He keeps strict hours, doesn't sell on credit and limits the range of his service. Indeed, if he were selling anything other than dope, like say, vacuum cleaners, he would strike you as a typical sales person. He pays a cut of his wages to the guy he "bought" the business from a year ago. "It's like buying any business. I'm buying his customer base, his pager number and all the people who call it. "So far this year, I've paid him about $20,000. But as of next month, I'll owe him nothing. The business will be mine." Steve's not the only guy on the Plateau to operate a door-to-door delivery service, but according to his customers, he's the most professional of the lot. "He's probably putting the other guys out of business," said one of his regulars. "With the others, you could be waiting all night, or they may never come at all. You never know. "But when you call Steve, you know he'll be there within 30 minutes. I don't want to use anyone else any more." It would seem that no one else wants to, either. His first stop Monday night garnered him two new customers. A friend had placed the call to introduce the couple, and was there when we arrived. "New customers always come through friends, or clients I know well. I never just go to a stranger's house, I have to be introduced first," Steve said. The deal went down in hushed tones - "3.5 grams," the client requested. "It's the outdoor (grown) stuff tonight," Steve replied while handing over a pre-packaged ZipLoc bag. "So it's cheaper. It's $35 instead of $40." Indeed, good news for dope-smokers everywhere: this week marks the beginning of the annual outdoor harvest, which means cheaper weed for everyone. "From mid-September to the end of October, there's lots of really cheap weed available, so it's cheaper for us, and cheaper for our clients. "Of course, it's not as strong as indoor weed, but this stuff is pretty good." After the money changed hands, he took down the new clients' first names - no last names are used, not even his own, "to keep things as discreet as possible" - and their phone number. "But I don't call people back when they page me," he explained. "I just recognize their number and go." He never gives out his own address. "I wouldn't want hordes of people coming to my door at night. It would be way too suspicious. Montreal is balconville. Everyone sits on their balconies, watching you. "This way, it's much more subtle. I'm just a guy on a bike. I obey traffic lights. I don't cycle around like a madman. Why would anyone stop me?" Indeed. His clients say they prefer to buy their dope this way because it's safer than buying it from a dealer on the street or in a bar. "You have time to look at the stuff before buying it, so there's a degree of quality control," one said. Steve has no ethical problems with selling the stuff, either. "It's harmless. "I've never heard of anyone dying from pot, and it's not like coke or heroin, where people will go out and rob someone to get money for their next fix. "And I'm not part of a gang, either. I'm just an independent operator." While he calls himself a "small operator" his is, in fact, a pretty lucrative business. With a nightly income of about $400, running drugs on the Plateau garners him a yearly salary in the high five figures. That's not bad for a "little guy." But I'm not going to give you his pager number. - Arabella Bowen can be reached at arabellabowen hotmail.com Pubdate: Wednesday 15 September 1999The Montreal Gazette
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