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TORONTO - Smokes were still coming off the shelves and it was business as usual yesterday inside an Oshawa convenience store busted a day earlier for allegedly having a candy bucket of drugs, including "Hillbilly Heroin," and selling 50-cent cigs to kids.
Durham Regional Police busted the owners of JS Mart, on Ritson Rd. S., just north of Olive Ave., Thursday after ministry of revenue officials searched the store for a tobacco compliance check.
The store's owner, who refused to give his name, told the Sun last night he's innocent.
"They're saying on the news we're selling drugs or something ... That's not true," the owner said. "It's wrong."
He denied selling cigarettes to kids and vowed to sue police.
'GOING TO SUE'
"I am going to sue (police) for big time millions of dollars," he said.
The couple said the store has been in the family since 1994 and they even reopened it Thursday night after being released from police custody.
"If what we did was so bad, why would police let us go on a promise to appear?" the man's wife said.
Sgt. Nancy van Rooy told the Sun yesterday staff at the nearby school, just steps from the store, complained to police that two pupils, 10 and 12 years old, were sold cigarettes for 50 cents a piece.
Police sent in tobacco enforcement officials, who in turn called cops when they found drugs, van Rooy said.
"In a back room ... they enter and see this bucket of candy and drugs," she said.
Police said the bucket contained individually wrapped plastic bags with 11/2 tablets of Oxycontin, two Percocets, two Dilaudids and 24 grams of marijuana.
While police put out a media release saying, "Convenience Store Owners Busted for Selling Drugs to Children," van Rooy confirmed there's no proof of that.
"We don't have any doubt that some things had been going on, but we don't have any proof of it," she said.
Tobacco investigators couldn't find any proof of smokes being sold to minors, van Rooy added.
"In the end, they didn't walk in on any of that taking place," she said.
A 42-year-old Oshawa man and a 39-year-old Oshawa woman are charged with possession of a controlled substance and three counts of possession of controlled drugs.
Police refused to release the couple's names to protect the identity of the children, ages 11, 8 and 5, who were home during the afternoon inspection.
The Children's Aid Society was notified of the incident, police said.
DON.PEAT@SUNMEDIA.CA