A native smoke shop worker says Ontario has warned it will not allow the shop to open a new entrance to the business off Highway 6.
Officials from the Ministry of Transportation and the OPP visited the shop yesterday after being alerted to entrance construction by Haldimand Mayor Marie Trainer.
Steve Powless, who has worked at the Plank Road 1 shop since it opened seven months ago, says there was "a civil meeting" on the entrance but ministry officials were adamant they won't permit it.
The shop, at the centre of a December fracas that led to nine arrests, is situated on the former right-of-way of Highway 6, which was blocked off when the nearby Caledonia bypass opened in 1983. Six Nations says it never surrendered the road bed, so the smoke shop was located there.
"The MTO came up and just told us they'll dig up the road. But they haven't got enough men to enforce anything on our people here."
Ministry officials could not be reached last night, but Trainer said she spoke at length with OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino's office and to Tim Shortill, chief of staff to Transportation Minister Jim Bradley. They did not tell her they would stop it, but both said they were looking into it and the OPP said they stopped it for now.
The mayor said the last entrance built off Highway 6 was in the early 1990s by a garden shop and it was "quite a contentious issue." She said the province does not allow new entrances off Highway 6.
The entrance is built but still needs some gravel work. It is south of the intersection of the bypass and Argyle Street South. The shop's present entrance is off Argyle Street.
Powless says some want to tread cautiously but "I tell you we are going to do it. We're exercising our rights on our land."