A cannabis dispensary and lounge co-owned by political pundit Bill Maher and actor Woody Harrelson was burglarized by a team of masked thieves.
Surveillance footage posted to social media shows five hoodie-clad men smashing through a glass window to The Woods in West Hollywood and then haphazardly stuffing sacks with merchandise.
The same video shows the crew hitting a different LA dispo that night, although the operation ran less smoothly. At ERBA Markets, which shares minority owners with The Woods, the robbers encountered an armed security guard, who quickly opened fire.
The men can be seen fleeing the gun shots. They dove into a black SUV, which sped away. KTLA 5 reported that no one was hit and that the robbers were unable to take anything from ERBA.
At Maher’s and Harrelson’s shop, however, they absconded with as much as $3,000 in merchandise, ABC 7 reported.
“They went in and they just randomly took stuff off the shelves,” Michael Berman, another co-owner, told the outlet of the Thursday robbery. “While there was a lot of mess from the broken glass, nobody was hurt. They got merchandise, but they didn’t actually damage too much inside.”
The Los Angeles Police Department told the Daily Beast that the suspects are still at large and that an investigation into the incidents is ongoing.
The Woods launched in 2022 with Harrelson, 63, as the majority owner and Maher, 69, as one of its minority owners. The tropical-themed shop sells a wide range of cannabis products and features several cabana-style lounges where patrons can get stoned.
Maher, who hosts the HBO politics show Real Time, and Harrelson, known for starring in hits like Zombieland and The Hunger Games, have both emerged as high-profile advocates for the legal cannabis industry.
Maher has made a habit out of smoking weed while recording his podcast, Club Random. Last year, Maher admitted to losing out on an interview with Jackass star Steve-O—who is long sober—because he refused to abstain from weed for the episode. Maher called Steve-O’s request “ridiculous.”
In a 2024 interview with Los Angeles magazine—conducted at The Woods while Maher was high—he opened up about his marijuana habit.
“I don’t smoke every day and never have,” he said. “I’m a situational pot smoker. I would never get high to do Real Time. I can do stand-up high because I don’t have to worry about a clock. I like it for sex. And I like it for writing.”
Harrelson told CBS in 2023 that he became a proponent of cannabis despite a conservative upbringing—and against his mother’s best wishes.
“She’d be sitting there, she’d have her coffee and cigarette and everything in the morning, you know,” he recalled of his mom. “And she’d be like, ‘Son, if I ever hear that you’re smoking marijuana …it’ll just kill me!’”
Nevertheless, he’s proud to own The Woods, calling it “just a little dream of what a great dispensary could be.”
Neither Maher or Harrelson has addressed the burglary publicly, and representatives for each did not immediately return the Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
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