BOOKSTORE TAKES A STAND

On Privacy of Customers

DENVER--Denver's prestigious Tattered Cover bookstore will fight a court
order directing it to disclose whether a customer bought books about drug
making because to comply would jeopardize others who buy controversial
works, the store's owner said yesterday.

The case is being closely watched by bookstores nationwide, and a host of
groups--including the American Library Association and the Association of
American Publishers--have lined up to support the store and owner Joyce Meskis.

A judge ordered the bookstore two weeks ago to tell the North Metro Task
Force in suburban Denver whether a customer bought two books on operating a
methamphetamine laboratory.

In March, suburban police raided a mobile home that they suspected as being
used as a methamphetamine laboratory, but they could not determine who
lived in the home because a number of people were seen going in and out.
However, they did find two books, "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine
Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture" and "The Construction and
Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories," and an envelope from the
Tattered Cover with an invoice number on it.