By Divya Rajagopal
TORONTO, June 15 (Reuters) – The Toronto cannabis shop that received a legal notice from FIFA for selling an unauthorised “FIFA Bong” destroyed the objects on Monday morning. Still, the owners are riding high on the instant fame the obscure store has received over the last two days because of their skirmish with one of the world’s biggest sporting organisations.
Last Friday, Cosmic Charlies, a cannabis store on Toronto’s hip Queen Street, received a legal notice from FIFA for selling a bong resembling the World Cup trophy. The bong priced at C$50 ($36) was sold to a single anonymous buyer, after which the store received a notice from FIFA lawyers for copyright infringement.
“It has come to our client’s attention that you are advertising, offering for sale and/or selling products bearing the FIFA trademarks,” the legal notice from law firm Lipkus Law, representing FIFA in Canada, said.
The letters took the store owners and brothers Sean Kady (38) and Charles Kady (34) by surprise. They had stocked the bongs to celebrate the festivities around the soccer World Cup, which Canada is co-hosting with Mexico and the United States.
Canada was the first country in North America to legalise recreational cannabis use and sale through retail stores; in the United States, it remains federally illegal to consume cannabis, even though 24 states have legalised it. In Mexico, personal consumption is legal but not retail sale.
“So we thought there was an opportunity to portray Canada as the leader in cannabis tourism. And we just thought that this would be another reason to kind of bring in those soccer fans and fans of FIFA…,” said Sean Kady about the silicon-made bong, which he destroyed, using a mallet and scissors.
“The cost of breaking one bong definitely could never buy me all the PR that we’ve gotten just from carrying this thing for a short period of time. I never expected to go viral, obviously, for carrying it. And I’ll never forget the time FIFA gave me a red card,” Kady said.
($1 = 1.3981 Canadian dollars)
(Divya Rajagopal in Toronto, additional reporting by Imad Creidi, Kyaw Soe and Bhargav Acharya, editing by Ed Osmond)
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