SALE OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA 'REPREHENSIBLE', MAYOR SAYS

Ruth Pare will stop selling pot pipes and glass bongs if Maple Ridge
council asks her to.

But other store owners in Haney Place Mall are more reluctant to comply.

At a workshop meeting Monday, Maple Ridge council decided to send a letter
to local businesses, as well as the chamber of commerce, asking them to
stop selling drug paraphernalia, or at least stock it in a place less
visible than the front counter.

"You can go into almost any corner store and right on the counter, at eye
level for a six-year-old, are all the pipes for smoking hash and pot,"
Mayor Kathy Morse said. "I think that's reprehensible."

She said council doesn't have the authority to prevent the sale of drug
paraphernalia. However, she is concerned about the amount of money the
district spends trying to reduce drug use in the community and hopes that
local businesses will comply with council's request.

Pare owns Haney Place Market and Antique Mall, where Safeway used to be
located in the downtown mall. A glass display case is near the cash
register. "Puffer's Palace: hookahs, bongs, vapourizers, pipes, grinders,
screens and more," reads a sign atop the case. "For medicinal purposes
only," reads another.

Glass pipes sell for up to $30. Metal pipes sell for $10. Cannabis filters
sell for $1.

Pare said the display case and items inside it belong to a man who came to
her in December. He rents space in her store to sell the drug
paraphernalia. She gets 20% of sales.

Pare said she sold out of big bongs, $40 to $60, before Christmas.

Most of the sales were to men, she said. She remembers a woman who bought a
pipe from the case for her teenage daughter.

Pare said she asks customers wanting to make purchases from Puffer's Palace
for identification. She won't sell to anyone under 18 and has refused to
sell items to several girls who didn't have any ID.

Pare hasn't sold much from the case since December. She hasn't talked to
the man who owns it since January, when he came to collect his money and
was supposed to restock the case. The bottom shelf remains empty.

Pare said she's not comfortable having drug paraphernalia in her store. If
council asked her not to sell it, she said she would comply. "It's not
enough of a percent of my sales to make a dent."

Glass pipes and bongs are displayed in two glass cases at the front of
Sheffield and Sons, a smoke store in Haney Place Mall. Glass bongs sell up
to $68. Glass pipes sell for $35. Electric weigh scales and other items are
also in the front cases.

Tobacco pipes are located in a wall-mounted case at the back of the store.

The store owner, who refused to give his name, explained the water pipes he
sells are commonly used in Asia to smoke tobacco.

He said he doesn't know what the other pipes are used for. If asked by
Maple Ridge council to stop selling drug paraphernalia, he said he would
continue to follow the law that allows him to sell it.

At San Francisco, beside Sheffield and Son, "shroomkas" are on sale for
$24, reduced from $68. A "shroomka" is a mushroom hooka, according to the box.

Shroomkas are locked in a glass case against a wall in the middle of the
store, along with numerous pipes and bongs, including a ceramic one shaped
like Yoda's head.

Toques with embroidered marijuana leaves and strings of synthetic marijuana
leaves hang on either side of the display case.

Two employees said the mall manager asked San Francisco to stop selling the
drug paraphernalia, but that the store's head office said to leave it on
the shelves.