After a challenging few months, the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club might have a future after all.

Local council has agreed to help the medical cannabis compassion club stay open through a motion voted on earlier this month, reports Mugglehead.

“Council’s motion was to advocate for an exemption, to help the Buyers Club’s efforts to get one – it is the province of B.C. that will need to provide an exemption,” said Bill Eisenhauer, head of engagement at the City of Victoria.

The news came following a public outcry when the dispensary was raided by the provincial Community Safety Unit in mid-November.

No arrests were made, but the club’s supporters said the crackdown left many patients without a place to acquire their medicine, which is especially difficult when the number of legal stores in the region are not meeting local demand. The store defiantly re-opened shortly thereafter.

The club has been operating openly in downtown Victoria to provide affordable, cannabis-based medicine long before federal legalization came into force in 2018, and continued to do so without a licence post-legalization.

“We want to convince the government that it’s in their best interest to grant us a temporary exemption so that we can continue our work and work with the government towards becoming fully compliant with the law,” club founder Ted Smith told CTV News earlier this month while protesting the raid outside the office of Carole James, provincial finance minister and deputy minister.

FILE: Various uses for cannabis oil is sold to customers at the Cannabis Buyers Club, in Victoria B.C., Thursday June 11, 2015. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

“At this point, the provincial government hasn’t responded other than their official rhetoric that we’re not in compliance with the law and that’s why we’re being shut down,” Smith said at the time. “But their responses on paper have been things like, ‘our patients are not aware of the safety of the products because they’re not as tested as Health Canada’s products.’”

The club has also received support from Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps, who sent the provincial government a letter in support of its work.