H.C.A. Wellness Fined $20,000 After Moncton Cannabis Raid

H.C.A. Wellness Inc. was fined $20,000 on February 27, 2024, for the unlicensed Moncton cannabis store raided on October 13, 2022. Peace officers with New Brunswick’s Department of Justice and Public Safety, backed by the Codiac Regional RCMP, had valued that haul at about $136,000, cash included.

The same day the company was charged, officers withdrew Cannabis Act counts against Donald Matthew Scott, 42, of Fredericton, and G. James McEwen, 45. Sixteen months after the warrant, the file ended as a company cheque.

Officers Took $136,000 Off the Moncton Shelves

The warrant was executed on October 13, 2022, at an illicit storefront in Moncton. Two men, then 41 and 44, were arrested and later released while charges were still being weighed. The department put the cannabis, vape gear, and currency together at about $136,000.

Two months earlier, the same peace-officer group, again with Codiac RCMP support, had already hit another illegal Moncton shop and taken about $280,000 in cannabis, tobacco, mushrooms, and cash. The October raid was the second large storefront seizure in the city that year, not a one-off bust.

Product visible in the department’s own photos included dried flower, pre-rolls, Kush Kitchen edibles and gum pops, Play-Dope extracts, Trinity Drops, and Green Phoenix Gummies. None of that stock had gone through a Health Canada-approved retail channel.

WHAT OFFICERS CARRIED OUT

• Dried cannabis: More than a dozen kilograms of flower came off the shelves in the October 13 search.
• Hash and oils: Officers listed 1.5 kg of hash, 255 grams of live resin, and 52 grams of RSO, a thick concentrated oil.
• Vapes: The tally included 91 disposable vape pens and 130 vape cartridges.
• Edibles and cash: They took 200 grams of edibles and about $10,400 in cash from the property.

The department’s public reminder after the raid was blunt: Cannabis NB was then the only legal recreational retailer in the province, and illegal shops sell product that is not tested or approved by Health Canada. Private licensed shops had not yet filled out the map the way they would by 2026.

The Two Men Walked Out of the File

Scott and McEwen were charged with possessing cannabis for the purpose of selling, a Cannabis Act offence. On Tuesday, February 27, 2024, Department of Justice and Public Safety officers laid a new charge against the Moncton company instead. The counts against the two men were withdrawn that day.

H.C.A. Wellness Inc. is the name that took the hit. Scott’s hometown is Fredericton; McEwen’s was not given in the charging material that circulated with the fine. The company, not the two people who had been arrested in 2022, is what the $20,000 attached to.

Parking the case on a corporation changes who feels the loss. A withdrawn personal charge does not put anyone in jail, does not create a criminal record for Scott or McEwen on this count, and leaves the storefront model able to treat a raid as inventory risk plus a later invoice. The cash seized in 2022, about $10,400, was already more than half the eventual fine.

Court-day accounts described the result as the first time a New Brunswick business was fined for selling illegal cannabis. That “first” is a procedural marker. It is also a price.

$20,000 Against the Cannabis Act Ceiling

Section 10 of the federal Cannabis Act bans selling cannabis, or anything held out as cannabis, unless the seller is authorized. Possessing cannabis for the purpose of selling it is banned on the same terms. On indictment, the ceiling is 14 years in prison. On summary conviction, an organization faces a fine of not more than $100,000.

The $20,000 assessed against H.C.A. Wellness Inc. is one-fifth of that summary maximum. It sits far under the department’s own $136,000 figure for the Moncton haul. Even if the about $10,400 in cash is pulled out, the remaining product-and-vape slice of that stated value is about $125,600.

THE FINE BESIDE THE RAID AND THE STATUTE

For a person, summary conviction on a straight adult-sale file is a fine of not more than $5,000 or six months in jail, or both. Selling to someone under 18, or possessing for that purpose, lifts the summary cap to $15,000 and 18 months. Those personal numbers never came into play once the two men were off the information.

A $20,000 company ticket can be paid from a few strong weeks of unlicensed retail. It does not require anyone to admit a personal crime on the record. That is the bargain this file closed on.

Cannabis NB Still Flags Illegal Stores

The legal shelf in New Brunswick is no longer a Crown-only counter. Cannabis NB still runs the government stores and the online shop, and it certifies private shops and FarmGate counters that Public Safety licenses. FarmGate sites are producer-run rooms that sell that producer’s own goods on site.

In its fourth-quarter results for fiscal 2025, covering the period ended March 29, 2026, Cannabis NB reported $23.1 million in product sales, $11.2 million in gross profit, and $3.7 million in net income. Product sales were up 3.8% from the same quarter a year earlier; net income was down 20%.

CANNABIS NB IN THAT QUARTER

• Doors: 30 Cannabis NB stores, 11 private retailers, and 7 FarmGate shops, 48 legal locations in more than 30 communities.
• Tickets: 380,000 transactions, down from 387,000 in the first three months of 2025, with the average basket up from $58.11 to $60.63.
• Mix: Dried flower 47% of sales, concentrates 37%, edibles 8%, and everything else 8%.
• New private shop: Cannabis XPress opened in Bouctouche during the quarter.

For the 2024-2025 fiscal year as a whole, Cannabis NB reported $100.9 million in sales and a net profit of $23.1 million, a different figure from the $23.1 million in product sales in that later quarter. President and CEO Lori Stickles tied the legal network’s job to the unregulated market that H.C.A. Wellness Inc. had been part of.

Cannabis NB continues to address the unregulated cannabis market in New Brunswick through consumer education and increased access to tested, legal cannabis in our communities. This quarter, we saw the opening of another private retail location in our network, as well as another campaign of our Good to Know education campaign. These strategic actions, along with our team’s commitment to providing an excellent customer experience every step of the way, help CNB continue to shift existing cannabis consumers to legal options.

Lori Stickles, President and CEO, Cannabis NB fourth-quarter results

On its own private-retailer page, Cannabis NB still tells shoppers there are a number of illegal stores across New Brunswick selling unregulated, untested goods, and that many of those shops claim to be legal or imply they may sell medical product. The Crown retailer is writing that warning years after the $20,000 “first” fine.

Saint John and the Raids That Followed

Unlicensed counters did not vanish from New Brunswick after H.C.A. Wellness Inc. paid. Public Safety kept hitting storefronts in other cities, then came back to Moncton, and the RCMP later treated a First Nation warehouse as an organized-crime target rather than a bylaw file.

THE STOREFRONT CALENDAR AFTER MONCTON

1. August 2022: Peace officers and Codiac RCMP seize about $280,000 in cannabis, tobacco, mushrooms, and cash from an illegal Moncton dispensary.
2. October 13, 2022: The H.C.A. Wellness Inc. warrant in Moncton produces the $136,000 haul and two arrests.
3. November 1, 2023: Officers raid Chronic Kings, an unlicensed shop in a former car wash at 8 Simpson Dr. in Saint John, and arrest a 47-year-old city man.
4. January 9, 2024: Peace officers arrest a man and a woman and seize contraband cannabis from another unlicensed Saint John store.
5. February 27, 2024: H.C.A. Wellness Inc. is fined $20,000; charges against Scott and McEwen are withdrawn.
6. April 2, 2026: Public Safety raids the L’Nuk Lounge on Germain Street in east Moncton and posts a civil-forfeiture notice on the boarded door.
7. April 26, 2026: RCMP search Madawaska Warehouse at 1815 rue Principale on Madawaska First Nation, plus sites in Ontario and Nova Scotia, citing organized crime, drug trafficking, and money laundering.

Chronic Kings in Saint John

The November 1, 2023, search at 8 Simpson Dr. pulled 2.7 kilograms of dried cannabis, 116.3 grams of hashish, 141.6 grams of cannabis resin in brick form, about 1,007 grams of extracted resin and oil, 362 packages of edible gummies, 119 packages of other edible food, 175 jars or packs of shatter, 43 packages of distillate vape oil, 114 THC vape pens, 91 pre-rolled joints, about four pounds of homemade gummies, and about $1,200 in cash. A Facebook page for the business showed it operating from at least December 2021. The arrested man was released and given a January 30, 2024, court date.

A Second Moncton Shop, Then a Warehouse

L’Nuk Lounge, run by three brothers from Ugpi’ganjig (Eel River Bar First Nation), had been open about three years when officers hit the Germain Street room on April 2, 2026. The civil-forfeiture posting cited the Tobacco Tax Act and the Cannabis Control Act. Owners and supporters gathered outside Public Safety’s Moncton regional centre the following week rather than treat the raid as the end of the shop.

Four weeks later, RCMP moved on Madawaska Warehouse, a privately run wholesaler the First Nation had licensed along with two community stores, The Gram and The Maliseet Pot Shop. Cst. Marie-Pierre Guertin, speaking for the Mounties in Montreal, said the investigation targeted organized crime, drug trafficking, and money laundering. Indigenous Affairs Minister Keith Chiasson and Luke Randall, the minister then responsible for Cannabis NB, had toured the warehouse on March 30. Arrests were made; charges had not been laid in the first weeks after the search.

That warehouse file is a different legal fight from H.C.A. Wellness Inc., which had no First Nation licence to stand on. What it shares with the 2022 Moncton store is the province’s habit of seizing product first and taking years, or never, to land a personal conviction that sticks.

How Do You Spot a Legal Cannabis Store in New Brunswick?

Legal recreational cannabis in New Brunswick is sold only by Cannabis NB corporate stores, by private shops licensed through Public Safety and certified by Cannabis NB, and by FarmGate rooms run by licensed producers. Adults must be 19. The federal public-possession cap remains 30 grams of dried cannabis or the equivalent.

Illegal shops often borrow the look of a licensed counter and talk as if they can fill medical orders. Cannabis NB’s check is physical, not a vibe.

THE BADGE TEST BEFORE YOU BUY

• Window badge: Every approved private retailer is supposed to show a Badge ID on the glass and inside the store.
• QR code: Each badge carries a QR code that opens the Cannabis NB site so a shopper can match the name and address.
• The list: If the business name, address, and badge number are missing from Cannabis NB’s private-retailer list, or do not match, the shop is not an approved legal private retailer.
• The desk: Cannabis NB tells the public to call 1-833-821-2195 or email info@cannabis-nb.com to confirm a location.

H.C.A. Wellness Inc. never had that badge. Neither did Chronic Kings. L’Nuk Lounge did not have it when Public Safety boarded Germain Street. The $20,000 fine in 2024 put a number on one Moncton company. It did not put a badge on the rest of the street.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the Maximum Fine for a Company That Sells Cannabis Without a Licence?

On a summary-conviction selling file under section 10 of the Cannabis Act, an organization can be fined up to $100,000. If the Crown proceeds by indictment, the Act sets a prison maximum of 14 years and does not cap an organization’s fine in that subsection the way it caps the summary ticket. A separate catch-all in section 44, used for other Act and regulation breaches, can reach $5 million on indictment or $250,000 on a first summary conviction.

What Happened to Donald Scott and G. James McEwen After the Raid?

They were arrested in October 2022 at ages 41 and 44, released while the file was still under investigation, and later named on Cannabis Act charges of possessing cannabis for the purpose of selling. Those personal charges were withdrawn on February 27, 2024, when the department charged H.C.A. Wellness Inc. instead. No jail term, probation order, or personal fine for either man was announced with the company’s $20,000 penalty.

How Can You Confirm a New Brunswick Cannabis Shop Is Legal?

Look for a Public Safety licence and a Cannabis NB Badge ID with a QR code on the window, then match the shop’s legal name, street address, and badge number to Cannabis NB’s published private-retailer list. FarmGate rooms are producer sites selling that producer’s own legally made goods on site, not a third-party street dispensary. A shop that only claims to be “Indigenous-owned,” “medical,” or “private” without those badges is not in the certified network.

Did the $20,000 Fine Include Forfeiture of the Seized Stock?

The public charging material that accompanied the February 27, 2024, company charge listed the $20,000 fine and the withdrawal of the two men’s counts. It did not set out a separate published forfeiture order in the same court-day account, even though the flower, hash, vapes, edibles, and about $10,400 in cash had already been taken in 2022 and were no longer in the store.

The Moncton company paid $20,000. Scott and McEwen left the file. Public Safety’s own list of illegal shops, and the boarded lounge on Germain Street, are what followed that first corporate ticket.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on a completed New Brunswick court result and later enforcement actions. It is for information only and is not legal advice, a criminal-defence opinion, or guidance on how to operate or close a cannabis business. Anyone facing charges, a civil-forfeiture notice, or a licensing question should speak with a licensed New Brunswick lawyer who handles cannabis and regulatory files before acting. Figures, store counts, and case statuses are those published by the Department of Justice and Public Safety, the Cannabis Act, Cannabis NB, and the RCMP as of the dates named above, and they can change with new charges, appeals, or store openings.