The pop-up store created by Ian Thomas and the web shop, Ganō, was short-lived. The store was opened two days ago, slated to stay open through September 1st. However, yesterday it was closed by a police order. The store sold CBD oils, derived the hemp plant. The Antwerp attorney had the store closed due to administrative shortcomings.
A plant? Are you guys kidding?
Ian Thomas
Today the police sealed the Ian Thomas x Gano CBD pop up store in Antwerp. Today I have received countless stories about how CBD changes lives. It is incomprehensible how much commotion is made around a 100% natural plant… # NatureIsNotACrime
Several agents entered the Kloosterstraat location shop yesterday morning, did an inspection of the products, and sealed the building. The police were accompanied by customs inspectors, or also known as a multi-disciplinary team. These customs officers seized several samples of products for further investigations via the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FASFC). In Belgium, it is illegal to sell CBD products as dietary supplements.
The owner of the Ganō pop-up store, Ina Averals, states, “regarding that permit, we rent the property for one week, and I have checked with the authorities about the permit we needed for that. According to the city everything was fine. The second infringement is, so to speak, the food legislation of the FASFC. We would sell our products as a food supplement, but that is definitely not the case. I think it is a great pity that our store is closed, even though our products are in perfect order and it is legal to sell products with a CBD content of less than 0.2%. But it is enormously difficult to communicate about this in Belgium, because they always raise a wall when it comes to cannabis. The legislation on this is still too much, and we would like to change that.”
The Ganō Webshop still remains open and can be visited at www.ganocbd.com.
