SUNSHINE'S NEIGHBORS LIST THE DARKER SIDE OF FESTIVAL

Complain To Preston Commission About Crowds, Noise, Drug Abuse

KINGWOOD -- Sunshine Daydream's neighbors complained to county officials
Tuesday about noise, traffic, trespassing and drug use caused by the music
festival campground.

Though County Prosecutor Ron Brown and Sheriff Ron Crites expressed
sympathy for their plight, the officials cautioned the property owners that
law enforcement is bound by the law when prosecuting offenses.

County commissioners asked Brown to look into the new nuisance law counties
can pass, wrote the State Police Superintendent to request manpower and
discussed contacting Sunshine's owner.

It was a return visit for frustrated landowner Kenneth Hubbard, who
complained about Sunshine in August 2000. He said Sheriff's Lt. Joe Stiles
and then-Chief Deputy Charlie Haney assured him at the time an undercover
investigation was under way. He's still waiting for results, and "my wife
and I still sit on our front porch and listen to loud music."

Hubbard, who owns two restaurants in Baltimore, said young people who work
there are familiar with Sunshine as a "mecca" for drugs and music, and have
little fear of "the dumb hillbilly police in Preston County."

"These kids will stand there in my crab house in Baltimore and say they can
come to Preston County, West Virginia, and do whatever they want," Hubbard
said. "I don't understand what it's going to take to wake this county up."

Hubbard bought 130 acres at Oak Grove before Sunshine was created and made
major improvements in order to retire there. He had sold acreage in Roane
County after an arsonist burned his mobile home.

On Tuesday he pledged to his wife, "If I get us out of this, and we will
get out -- it will cost a lot of money -- so help me as God is my judge, we
will never step foot in West Virginia again."

Three others said they want to stay, but they want protection against
trespassing, traffic and other problems caused by Sunshine. James Shillito
said commissioners "have forsaken not only me but everyone in Preston County."

Shillito, a school bus driver, said he always hopes he'll be able to
control his bus when traffic on the Brandonville Pike bound for Sunshine
runs him off the road.

Ellis Stemple recalled how he and his son detained three people who
trespassed on his farm, using it to enter Sunshine Daydream, possibly to
avoid the ticket fee. Preston deputies were there twice and ran trespassers
off, Stemple said, and his family later found two bags they suspect are
drugs in a field.

His concern is the damage being done to the land and his possible liability.

"They come up there with their beer bottles and beer cans, and you go up
there to make hay and it's there," Stemple said. "I'd just like for them to
stay (at Sunshine) and leave me alone."

Joyce Cotter lives a mile away from Sunshine, in a retirement home she
bought in 1995 for the view. She's no stranger to the attraction of drugs,
having lived in the 1970s near a Maryland town she said was known as a
"drug mecca."

"I don't like seeing the Porta Potties. I don't like seeing the plywood
lean-tos there. But they have a right. (SSDD owner Trip McClenny) bought
the property knowing there was no zoning," Cotter said. "But I don't think
they're neighbor friendly, in that I listen to music 24 hours a day."

Late-night fireworks, stadium lights that cast shadows in her home at night
and hundreds of cars traveling the narrow Oak Grove Road are also a
problem, Cotter said. She predicted that a spreading bad reputation for
Preston County will deter people from moving here, affecting the local economy.

"There is money coming off it, I won't deny it. But is that the kind of
money you want?" she asked.

But economics can stop the problem, Cotter said. If police make it hard for
drug dealers to do business, they'll go away, she said.

Hubbard noted Garrett County, Md., police made 13 arrests for drug-related
offenses as people leaving the festival traveled through that county.

"My hat's off to the folks in Maryland. They have a lot of resources,"
Sheriff Crites said.

Preston has 13 deputies and six State Police troopers.

"I'm not sitting here trying to make excuses. We're doing our best to try
and get the other agencies involved that have the resources," Crites said.

Brown said officers have to follow the law in order to get a conviction. He
advised the landowners they might consider a civil suit against Suinshine
as well.

"When you're doing this to me, you don't have any rights," Hubbard
responded. "You're breaking the laws of the state. You're breaking the laws
of humanity."