COUN. POSTMA WANTS BONGS 'OUT OF SIGHT'

If a Windsor city councillor has her way, drug paraphernalia -- such
as bongs, glass pipes and hookahs -- will disappear from convenience
stores like smoke in the wind.

At the very least, Coun. Caroline Postma wants corner stores to cover
up the equipment used for smoking -- whether it's for smoking tobacco
or illegal drugs -- as they now do for cigarettes.

"No matter what they're used for, they should be out of sight,"
Postma said. "Out of sight, out of mind."

At Tuesday night's council meeting, Postma asked the city's legal,
licencing and health departments to look into whether drug
paraphernalia falls under the Smoke Free Ontario legislation.

If not, she wants to know the feasibility of a city bylaw banning
convenience stores from selling such wares, or requiring them to hide
them behind a counter.

Postma feels the time is right to target pipes, given that next
Monday she will introduce a Windsor-Essex County drug strategy, which
has been in the works for more than a year.

But Rad Chamoun, manager of the east-end Maple Leaf Variety -- which
has a prominent display case featuring colourful bongs, glass pipes
and more -- said banning sales of those products will only hurt a
city already reeling from a bad economy.

Even requiring owners to cover up such wares will shut some stores
down, he said.

"It's totally not fair," Chamoun said. "Our sales will already go
down because of covering the cigarettes. And now, if this suggestion
passes, we will lose more business."

Chamoun said several families rely on salaries from his store alone,
and that politicians must understand how difficult the economy is right now.

"The pressure on us is too much, more than what we can bear," Chamoun
said. "We are losing business. If this passes, very soon convenience
stores will close and declare bankruptcy, and the people will apply
to social services to get money."

Deborah Gatenby, executive director of the House of Sophrosyne, a
substance-abuse recovery program for women and their families, feels
openly displaying drug products represents too much of a "trigger"
for recovering addicts -- and sends the wrong message.

"I don't object fundamentally to the right of an adult to go into a
head shop and purchase as many pipes and bongs as they can carry,"
said Gatenby, who first raised the issue with Postma about a year
ago. "What I object to is the message we send to the young people in
our community, when they go into a place to get candy bars or
popsicles -- and are confronted with crack pipes and bongs."

She thinks deterring youth will curb drug addiction in the future,
and therefore supports the idea of covering up drug paraphernalia, as
other municipalities have done.

"What it prevents is children seeing these items, piquing their
curiosity, or planting a seed that these items are a normal part of
our community, that can be purchased on every corner," she said.