The infamous Cambridge magic mushroom store will be closing its doors for good after battling several legal battles costing the company millions of dollars.
The FunGuyz store on King Street in Preston has officially closed up shop, but the owners promise they will still serve Cambridge customers.
"We are still selling online," said Mike Johnson, a spokesperson for FunGuyz. "People are upset, mushrooms help people."
With all of the criminal charges racking up against employees of the store for illegally selling psilocybin, Johnson said the company decided that it was time to close the doors to over 30 physical locations permanently.
In total, FunGuyz has been the subject of over 120 raids with 20 of them coming from the Kitchener and Cambridge locations. Raids have also taken place at warehouses and distribution centres with management paying for lawyer fees for the nearly 40 employees who have been charged with trafficking.
Johnson could not provide a total amount spent on legal fees, but he estimates it to be in the millions.
"All of these raids cost taxpayers a lot of money and all they're doing is taking products that help people," he said.
Waterloo Regional Police Services provided a statement to CambridgeToday on the closure of the store confirming they will continue their work to shut down illegal shops selling drugs.
"The Waterloo Regional Police Service wishes to emphasize to the public that the sale (trafficking) of psilocybin is a criminal offence under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act (CDSA), as psilocybin is categorized as a Schedule III controlled substance," read the statement.
"Businesses engaged in selling these products are operating unlawfully and the substances they offer are neither regulated nor subject to standardized quality control measures."
Johnson adds that all of the raids have forced the company's hand, but they are still committed to advocating for the legalization of psilocybin in Canada.
"We're hoping that it gets legalized sooner rather than later, but the whole thing is it's not legalized and people don't have access to psilocybin and so companies like FunGuyz give people that access," he said.
The company is still fully operational online and they plan to provide customers with psilocybin through the mail, despite warnings from police to shut down operations indefinitely.
"To me, it's just like anything else, the government just wants to make the money for themselves," added Johnson. "We don't want to do this (close), but we have no choice. We can't keep up with the financial losses."
