Strolling down Bank Street in Ottawa, through the heart of the Glebe area, little, independently owned shops and boutiques catch the eye along the way: stores selling magazines and jewellery, as well as a coffee shop on every street corner.
If you walk far enough down, just before the Queensway overpass, you will happen upon a shop that seems a little different than the other traditional places of business. The sign above the window displays the words “Crosstown Traffic,” emblazoned in front of a cloud of smoke.
Sharing a name with a Jimi Hendrix song has obvious connotations, storeowner Mike Foster says he is notsure why he chose it.
“I don’t know why I picked it. At that point in time, we were in the west end, and ‘traffic’ implied movement, mobility, stuff going on. It was a busy sounding name,” he says.
The store’s merchandise, including vinyl records, ’70s pornography and marijuana paraphernalia, tells the long story of a man wanting to pursue his interests, while his little emporium grew into a hub for the average music listeners, comic book readers and midnight tokers.
Along the way, Foster found a way to become heavily involved with marijuana activism, from testifying in a Vancouver trial, to organizing pro-pot rallies, to running as a political candidate.
He has done this all while maintaining both a good community image and avoiding legal consequences.
“If you told me 30 years ago that I’d be running Crosstown Traffic today, I would have said: ‘I have no idea how to do that,’” says Foster, who sports glasses, long greying hair and a perpetual, welcoming smile.
Originally from Kingston, Fosters says his interests as a youth were a big influence on the direction of the store.
“I always had an obsession with comic books and MAD Magazine,” he says.
In 1975, Foster moved to Ottawa, seeking a government job. Upon finding one at the Department of Energy, Mines and Resources, he realized it was not for him . . . 10 years later.
“I just didn’t want to do that for the rest of my life,” he says.
When his daughter was born, Foster’s wife took a six-month maternity leave, and “she hated the feeling of being housebound all the time,” he says.
Contrastingly, Foster said he loved it. When his wife returned to work, Foster took a leave of absence from his job and simply never returned.
After finding success selling records and comic books at a local flea market, Foster said he wanted to expand and went to the government looking for a loan.
“I got a new ventures loan, which was a program at the time where I put up $3,000 of my money, and borrowed $6,000 dollars from the government,” he says.
Foster says selling marijuana paraphernalia was not the stores original focus, and instead it specialized in CDs and comic books.
“I had my box of comics and didn’t have anywhere to put them, so I set up milk crates, laid a door on top of them and threw a blanket over it to act as some furniture. I did everything on the cheap,” he says.
In 1994, Foster became involved with the Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium’s legal battle with the Canadian Border Services Agency.
The dispute arose when Little Sister’s, a Vancouver-based store specializing in gay and lesbian books, had merchandise that was deemed obscene and later seized while coming into Canada.
Foster became involved when he too lost incoming comics to government seizure, and flew out to B.C. to testify as a witness in the trial.
It was around this time that marijuana activist Marc Emery founded the store Hemp B.C. in Vancouver, and was beginning to “inject some politics into the issue [of marijuana],” says Foster. “I saw what he was doing and I liked what I saw,” he says.
“I always had a soft spot for pot. I was bringing High Times magazines and [marijuana] grow books into the store.”
And so the collection grew to what the store currently holds: enough rolling papers, water-pipes, herb vaporizers and incense to make the average Cheech and Chong go “cha-ching.”
But running a headshop is not everything it is cracked up to be. Like any other business, Foster says he spends most of his time ordering merchandise and doing paperwork.
“It’s like playing store I guess. I still don’t really understand how retail works, I just keep paying the bills and there’s still money in the bank,” he says.
The customer base of Crosstown Traffic has as much variety as the products on the shelves.
“It’s all over the map. Pot smokers who are 40 or 50, and probably don’t want to go to a Rideau Street store, are happy coming here and talking to us,” Foster says.
“A lot of people who shop at our store don’t even smoke pot. They come because they like the music or the movies.”
Chris, who retired after 36 ½ years of working for the government, has been working part time at Crosstown Traffic for two and a half years.
“I like it because it gets me out of the house and interacting with the public,” he says.
More of a music expert than a pot one, Chris says different products in the store sell at different rates, although the marijuana related products are consistent sellers.
“Books, movies, they all have their good days,” he says. “But the pot stuff certainly seems constant.”
In addition to everything else, Crosstown Traffic has a “gardening” section in the back, selling a variety of lights and fertilizers, but Foster says they don’t contribute to large scale grow operations.
“We never have been the type of store to attract the guys who do large commercial grows. We just attract your average Joe, who’s maybe growing 3 or 4 plants in their closet,” he says.
While Crosstown Traffic has managed to avoid any legal consequences from the products they sell, mainly because of their strict “no minors” policy, Foster says there can be repercussions from the trade.
Foster says one of his friends, who ran a headshop in Gatineau, Que., was shut down a year ago for selling marijuana seeds, a practice Crosstown Traffic has been doing since 1994.
“We live in a funny time where there is an uneven application of the law. What happens in Vancouver might not happen in Halifax,” he says.
Foster knocks on his wooden desk as he says he has not experienced any economic or legal trouble since the store’s founding.
Catherine Lindquist, executive director of the Glebe Business Improvement Area says Crosstown Traffic has been a good member since its creation.
“I have no knowledge of any complaints filed against them,” she says.
Any rabble-rousing Crosstown Traffic does tends to be kept low-key, whether it be organizing pro-marijuana protests or supporting the campaign against pot activist Marc Emery’s extradition to the United States for selling seeds.
Foster, who is one of the founding members of the Marijuana Party of Canada and also ran as a candidate for the party in the Ottawa Centre riding several years ago, has tried several times to organize pro-pot rallies on the hill.
“I think the most we could ever get to come out was about 1,000 people,” he says.
If Foster has his way, things at the store will continue to move forward as it currently does.
“Given the way things are, there is certainly going to be a lot of work to do, but I don’t see it going anywhere soon,” he says.
Whether it is selling eye-opening books or tools that give people red eye, Foster says he is happy to be the local neighbourhood store that offers something a little different, or a different way of thinking.
“I always wanted to have a business, but I wanted to make a difference too,” he says.