Twitter plea for pot costs Canadian his job

AFP FILE PHOTO

OTTAWA – A Toronto area mechanic who posted a Twitter message seeking marijuana to alleviate boredom at work this week got an unexpected reply— from police with an apparent sense of humor.

The young man also lost his job after his boss was alerted, Canadian media said Thursday.

Posting under the user name Sunith Baheerathan, he wrote on Tuesday: “Any dealers in Vaughan wanna make a 20sac chop? Come to Keele/Langstaff Mr. Lube, need a spliff or two to help me last this open to close (shift).”

Police spotted the post and were first to reply: “Awesome! Can we come too?”

The exchange, which prompted chuckles across the Internet, has since been re-tweeted more than 3,000 times.

Constable Blair McQuillan, the officer who sent the message, told AFP that police wanted it to be known that they monitor the Internet and that people can be held accountable for what they say on Twitter.

Toronto police have launched investigations from Twitter postings in the past, he noted, but none so far have led to criminal charges.

“In this case, we felt that sending officers to the Mr. Lube to wait for someone to show up (and commit a crime) wouldn’t be the best use of our resources,” McQuillan said.

“So we decided to take a light-handed approach to crime prevention.”

“We knew that sending out messages like ‘Don’t do drugs’ would get lost in this vast online network, so we tried to engage with people in a humorous way and show that we’re not just drones with badges.”