‘YOU’VE GOT TO MAKE A LIVING’: Shawarma operation reopens Friday

‘YOU’VE GOT TO MAKE A LIVING’: Shawarma operation reopens Friday

CORNWALL, Ontario – The owner of a shawarma shop on Pitt Street that was the scene of a police bust in May is reopening his store.

Hussein Yassin said in a telephone interview from the newly-branded Shawarma On Wheels on Pitt Street he will open at 11 a.m. on Friday.

“All I know is I have the best food in North America,” said the owner of what was once known as Cedar’s on Wheels. “You’ve got to make a living somehow.”

Hussein Yassin, 40, was listed as one of eight people charged in May after police broke up a drug and weapons operation officers dubbed Project Harden.

“I don’t want to talk about that,” Yassin said. “Whatever it is, it is. Nobody can beat the police, even when they are wrong.”

Project Harden focused on the trafficking of handguns and cocaine in eastern Ontario and led to eight arrests, nine seized firearms, and 107 charges.

“The operators of a Cornwall business, known as Cedar’s On Wheels, were arrested and charged in relation to this investigation,” said OPP Superintendent Paul Beesley in May at a press conference to announce the charges.

None of the charges or assertions by police have been proven in court.

Multiple search warrants were executed May 27 in Ottawa, South Glengarry, Akwesasne, and Longueuil, Que., as well as a Cornwall home near St. Lawrence College and the popular Pitt Street restaurant, located across the street from the Cornwall Community Police Service (CCPS) station.

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