by PATRICK LEJTENYI

For a regular pot smoker, Hugo St-Onge sure has been active lately. The 29-year-old leader of the provincial Bloc Pot had to shelve plans to open a cannabis café in the Latin Quarter just under a month ago, after the building's owner, fearing unwanted attention on the part of the police, nixed it. The café, Chez Marijane, was a couple of weeks away from opening, and the setback renewed the debate as to how tolerant a city Montreal really is.

But the good news, for St-Onge at least, is that Chez Marijane will open, a month after its target date. The location has moved from the high-profile Latin Quarter to an as-yet-undisclosed spot somewhere on the Plateau. St-Onge won't say where it is, but promises a party when it opens just before Halloween.

St-Onge doesn't bear a grudge against the owner of the old location for not wanting a marijuana café in his building. "I didn't want to fight a long court battle with him," he says, sitting in the living room of his Rachel E. apartment and Bloc Pot headquarters. "I didn't want to waste my time, money and energy. But of course, some people did feel let down."

What will concern him is the reaction of Montreal's finest when the café does appear. Shortly after St-Onge announced the imminent opening of the Latin Quarter café in mid-August, the police stated very publicly that they will enforce a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to drug use, decriminalization or not (a reminder: marijuana remains illegal, and the decriminalization law before Parliament has yet to be made into law, which may or may not happen). There are no signs they have changed their stance.

"We don't really speak to the police," St-Onge says. "But when we do, they say that they don't make the policies, they just enforce the law. But I think they just want to scare people."

To counter the police, pro-pot activists have to take to the streets like all progressive movements have in the past, St-Onge states. "We're like the gays before 1982," he says. "We have to get people out with their placards and convince the world that smoking marijuana is a victimless crime." Marijuana's not that much different, he thinks, than caffeine. "Both grow out of the ground and are transformed for human consumption," he says.

The café, however, will only sell coffee and snacks. It will stand by the policy that dominated the original one: consumption only, no trafficking. "Bring your own," St-Onge says. "Each person who goes in there takes responsibility for themselves."

As for the opening party and street demonstration later this month, St-Onge says that all is going according to plan. "We'll get a permit no problem," he says. "For some reason, it's easier to deal with governments than it is to deal with private enterprise. Because the Bloc Pot exists on paper, the government thinks we're okay. We're like the Jazz Fest. We're doing our own thing, and everyone at the demo is going to be pretty chill."