24 February 2015, 14:46 GMT
Charlo Greene — whose legal name is Charlene Egbe — quit her reporting job for KTVA in a spectacular fashion using an expletive on-air. She was reporting on an effort to legalize marijuana in Alaska and also announced her ownership of the Alaska Cannabis club.
This weekend, the Alaska Cannabis Club was raided by police who said they suspected that pot was being sold for recreational purposes at the club which is not yet legal in the state. Voters approved a ballot measure legalizing the recreational use of marijuana last year but it is still illegal to sell the drug. The state legislature is now considering that next step to legalizing the trade.
It is a charge Egbe has denied and she has been adamant that the club does not sell cannabis club itself at all, either for recreational purposes or medicinal ones. Rather, the club is for medical marijuana users to share among themselves. It also serves as a residence multiple medical marijuana cardholders.
"We don't sell any recreational marijuana. We don't sell any medical marijuana. This is a place for cardholders to come and share their own cannabis," she told her old employer KTVA.
However, police said they got a tip.
“Police received reports of the illegal sale of marijuana and other derivatives at a location that’s been identified as the Alaska Cannabis Club on the 600 block of Gamble Street,” they wrote in a statement to media.
No charges have been filed but police have apparently confiscated a couple vehicles, a Dodge Dakota and a Jeep Liberty, as well as an undisclosed amount of marijuana and pot plants. They also took computers and drug paraphernalia.
That hasn’t stopped Egbe and she already reopened the club which is back to full operation. She called the raid a “failed scare tactic.”
Egbe already owned the Alaska Cannabis Club for awhile before she quit her TV job. A group opposed to legalizing marijuana had tried to warn KTVA about her apparent bias. As early last August, the Alaska Dispatch News published a story that anonymously quoted a club founder who said she didn't want to reveal her name because of "potential repercussions from her employer.”
