GROUP: ENFORCE POT-PARAPHERNALIA BAN

City Is Focusing on Sale of Pipes for Meth, Crack

COLLEGE AREA - College Area residents are going after smoke shops near
San Diego State University, demanding that city officials ban the
businesses from selling bongs and other marijuana paraphernalia, from
stash kits to scales.

The College Area Community Council has sent letters to Councilman Jim
Madaffer and Mayor Jerry Sanders requesting that they enforce two
state health and safety codes that together make it a misdemeanor to
sell the paraphernalia at seven shops along El Cajon Boulevard and
University Avenue.

Just before Thanksgiving, City Attorney Michael Aguirre sent
cease-and-desist notices to 52 smoke shops citywide. The letters
instructed the shops to stop selling drug paraphernalia or face
consequences for the misdemeanor, which include up to six months in
custody and a $1,000 fine for each violation, plus possible civil
prosecution.

But Deputy City Attorney Makini Hammond said the office is targeting
paraphernalia for crack and methamphetamine use, not for marijuana, at
this time.

Members of the College Area Community Council and community groups
elsewhere believe the city isn't fully enforcing the law.

"Clearly, under the code as we read it, bongs are not allowed," said
Doug Case, president of the community council. "The reality is that
the city attorney doesn't think it's politically popular to prosecute
smoke shops for marijuana paraphernalia."

Case said residents support "high-quality retail businesses" in the
neighborhoods surrounding San Diego State University and a
revitalization of El Cajon Boulevard. Smoke shops don't contribute to
a "family-oriented community," he said.

Hammond doesn't dispute that selling marijuana paraphernalia is
against the law, but getting a conviction is another matter.

"We've primarily been targeting meth and rock-cocaine pipes because
those are the things we believed we would be successful in
prosecuting," she said. "The problem with going after marijuana pipes
is . . . there's always the defense that the stuff is being used for
tobacco purposes."

Hammond said another factor is a lack of adequate police and
prosecutorial staffing.

"We have limited resources," Hammond said. "Should we use them going
after smoke shops and marijuana bongs or drug houses? What does the
community want us to do?"

But Hammond said her office hasn't given up on this issue and is
looking for other legal means to more effectively combat it.

The city's highest concentrations of smoke shops are in and near the
College Area and Pacific Beach - neighborhoods with large numbers of
college students. Recently, the Pacific Beach Town Council and Pacific
Beach Planning Group sent letters to city officials demanding
enforcement there as well.

"We've known for a while that these shops existed, but we didn't
realize how many of them there were, and we didn't realize that the
drug paraphernalia they're selling is actually illegal to sell and the
police could enforce it," said Marcie Beckett, a board member of both
Pacific Beach groups. "We think the city is not doing its job of
enforcing the law. . . . They should at least try."

Such shops glamorize drug use, Beckett said.

Managers and clerks at smoke shops along El Cajon Boulevard said they
sell the controversial items for tobacco, not drug, use.

At Puff N Stuff Smoke Shop, a sign above a display of water pipes
warns customers not to refer to the items as bongs or they will be
asked to leave. Bongs are water pipes favored by some who smoke marijuana.

On the same street, Up in Smoke sells a colorful array of water pipes
ranging from about $25 to $1,000, as well as other glass pipes. Some
are custom-made with figurines.

"We're more of a high-end glass shop," manager Ryan James said, adding
that the inventory is aimed at smoking tobacco in a healthier manner.

"Going after us because somebody used stuff we had for drugs is kind
of like going after Wal-Mart because somebody bought a steak knife
there and used it to stab somebody," he said.

Despite James' assertion that the products aren't drug-related, a
T-shirt on one sales rack displays a marijuana leaf. Also for sale are
faux soda cans used for concealing items - cash, says James;
contraband, say critics.

James said the shop used to sell oil burners but got rid of those in
response to Aguirre's letter. The store then removed the scales and
"jewelry bags" at the request of undercover police who visited the
store in December, James said.

"They said the jewelry bags and postal scales couldn't be used for
anything else but drugs," he said.

Makini said the Drug Abatement Response Team, a multiagency task force
that she's a part of, has been trying to rid businesses of drug
paraphernalia since 1995, when such items primarily sold by
mom-and-pop stores. Today, the items are sold by smoke shops under the
guise of selling tobacco, she said, adding that there's a huge profit
involved.

After Aguirre's letters, undercover law enforcement hit 12 businesses
in December suspected of selling meth-and rock-smoking pipes such as
oil burners, resulting in charges against owners and clerks at two
stores.

Going after crack and meth paraphernalia, but not those for marijuana,
isn't a political issue, Hammond said, but public sentiment plays a
role.

"The attitude toward rock cocaine and methamphetamine is that it
destroys people's lives, but people are more accepting of marijuana,"
she said. "I'm not saying that's right. I'm just saying that's the
reality. . . . We need to work on changing the public perception if we
want to go after marijuana bongs."