19 DRUG ARRESTS AT LENNON VIGIL

The police arrested 19 people on charges of smoking marijuana at the
day-and-night vigil to commemorate the life of John Lennon on the 20th
anniversary of his slaying, officials said yesterday.

Officers, both in plain clothes and in uniform, policed the peaceful vigil,
which attracted more than 1,000 people. The officers were overseen by the
department's third-ranking official, Chief of Department Joseph J. Esposito.

The police said that the arrests in and around Central Park's Strawberry
Fields, opposite the Dakota, the apartment building where Mr. Lennon lived,
began Friday afternoon and continued until early yesterday. Officers also
arrested one person for selling marijuana and issued summonses to two
others, one for drinking alcohol from an open container and one for
marijuana possession, the police said.

Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who denied a request from organizers of the
vigil to waive the park's 1 a.m. curfew, citing public safety concerns,
defended the arrests. "It is illegal in the United States of America to
sell or smoke marijuana," he said. "The police were doing what they should
be doing."

Norman Siegel, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties
Union, said the arrests and Chief Esposito's presence were a
disproportionate level of enforcement. "It raises serious questions about
the judgment of the Giuliani administration and the N.Y.P.D.," he said.