ARE WE PAYING FOR AN AGENCY THAT'S SIMPLY TRYING TO STOP US FROM HAVING FUN?

I have no problem with a police presence to stop drunk driving that
can result from such an out-in-the-sticks event as the Pozo Saloon
show ("What happened in Pozo?" July 8), and I am more than happy the
police intervened to bring down one drunk dude--I hate it when "that
guy" bumps into me on the dance floor and spills my $6 beer. Yes, a
few arrests may have been necessary to protect the citizens of SLO
County from an immediate threat, but couldn't those arrests have been
accomplished without dozens of officers who likely received special pay?

Let me offer an analogy. I go to a baseball game and bring my own hot
dogs. A man walks up and asks to buy one. Since I consider myself a
reasonably nice guy, I give him one. He insists on paying, but I
object in the spirit of sharing an experience with my fellow man. I
let him have a hot dog, with relish. When he insists and shoves a
bill into my shirt pocket, the FDA helicopters in and arrests me for
not having a permit to prepare and sell food.

The analogy may be faulty but the main points are there. In
California people can smoke marijuana for medical purposes (isn't
California great!), so Marcus Wolf (I don't know him) was well within
his rights to have pot. Furthermore, he was at a concert, not looking
to sell his pot but looking to enjoy live music with his friends. A
man comes up to him and asks him for a hot dog (I mean, a sack of
weed) and of course, in keeping with the spirit of collectivism that
only a concert seems to bring about, Marcus succumbs to the
undercover cop's query and gives him a dog ... er ... pot. And goes
to jail for it.

We've all been to concerts. We know people seem to be much more
likely to help us at concerts, so why should such events that seem to
have such a positive effect on people be so heavily policed?

When the SLO County Narcotics Taskforce throws a ton of money at
something like this and gets little to no results, it's
disheartening. It's disheartening because the Pozo Saloon is the only
large-scale outdoor venue of its kind in this area and now people
will be less likely to spend a weekend there, because we're paying
for an agency that is in effect trying to stop us from having fun together.

This operation was simply lazy police work. Was the reasoning behind
it that wherever there are large groups of people, there must be drug
dealers to catch? Should we pay for a special taskforce to focus on
rooting out all the illicit drug use at the concerts in the mission
plaza in SLO or the Harbor Fest in Morro Bay?

Atascadero

Ephraim Sommers