GROUP VOWS TO IGNORE POT-FESTIVAL DENIAL

POWNAL -- A group that employs civil disobedience to push for legalizing
marijuana plans to defy the local government and hold a concert and rally
despite being denied a permit.

The Board of Selectmen on Tuesday denied Maine Vocals' plans to hold a
concert the fourth weekend of June at Andy Jordan's field, a festival that
organizers said could draw triple the town's population of 1,300.

Now the founder of the group says he plans to go ahead with the Cumberland
County Hemp Festival later this month, asserting the right to free assembly
guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

"We never give up. This is ridiculous. Now instead of fighting for our
rights on the cannabis end of things . . . now we're fighting for freedom
of speech and the right to gather," said Don Christen, founder of Maine
Vocals. The group has said it planned to charge $30 a person to raise money
to advance its political agenda.

Andy Jordan, the landowner who planned to host the festival for financial
reasons, could not be contacted Friday. But Christen said his decision to
hold the event should not affect Jordan because the Maine Vocals already
have a lease for the property covering those days.

Meanwhile, the Cumberland County Sheriff's Office is making plans to deploy
deputies that weekend just in case thousands of people do descend on the
rural community.

"This is like a Phish concert without the Phish," said Sheriff Mark Dion,
referring to the popular Vermont band that has held huge concert gatherings
at the former Loring Air Force Base in Limestone.

The mass-gathering dispute with the town is a civil issue, said Dion, and
he is wary of interfering with someone's rights of assembly and expression.

"Some residents of Pownal hope I can put an end to it before it even
starts, but going back to the constitutional issue, I may not be able to do
that," he said. "I took an oath to protect those rights.

"But we also could have a lot of impaired individuals who could engage in
behaviors or activities that have an adverse impact on neighbors and the
town as a whole and I have an equal responsibility to protect those
interests, and I will," he said.

Residents and town officials worry that traffic, trespassing and campfires
could lead to problems outside the festival grounds.

Dion plans to meet with District Attorney Stephanie Anderson to determine
ahead of time what kinds of offenses could produce arrests that will lead
to court prosecution.

"I want some agreement of what would be appropriate police response to
their political expression, since it might involve the use of controlled
substances," he said. Police have historically ignored the recreational use
of marijuana at events staged for the purpose of drawing attention to
legalization efforts.

Dion also said he will work with prosecutors on what pre-emptive actions
his deputies can take to limit the size of the gathering.

Dion supports the legal medical use of marijuana, though he opposes its
recreational use.

Maine Vocals has been holding annual summer concerts in the Somerset County
town of Starks since 1990 with relatively few problems. It planned to add
the Pownal concert to take advantage of the greater population in southern
Maine, Christen said.

Sue Mack, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, said there were a
half-dozen reasons why the board felt the Maine Vocals' plans did not meet
the requirements of the mass-gathering ordinance, which is designed to
protect the health, safety and welfare of the town's residents and
festival-goers.

The reasons included parking issues and a restriction on mass gatherings of
this type in the rural zone. She was not sure whether there were other
areas that did allow the activity.

None of the board's reasons for denying the concert had anything to do with
the group's political goals, she said. "I believe we had a very open and
fair hearing. I thought we bent over backward to make it a fair process,"
she said of Tuesday night's meeting, which drew a small crowd of Pownal
residents concerned about the planned concert.

"When we denied it, I think everybody in that room was satisfied that we
had done a good job."