Up in smoke??

The Northeast Times ^ | Oct. 5 , 2006 | William Kenny

[grjr21]

narcotics officers raided Pratt Services Check Cashing, at 1532-34 Pratt St., for selling colorful glass water bongs and pipes, thousands of small plastic bags and pill containers, rolling papers and scales.

In addition to the alleged paraphernalia, cops seized $334,000 in cash, a revolver, a shotgun and computer equipment, but no actual drugs.


What would a check cashing store in the inner city be doing with cash ... They Must be drug dealers ...confiscate everything </Sarc>

[wideawake]

To anyone with a working brain, it's obvious that this "check-cashing" place was a combination money laundry/drugdealing supply store.

[Anvilhead]

I'd rather deal with crack whores then the government. At least a crack whore can be persuaded to relent.

[Still Thinking]

"Everybody seemed to agree that this stuff shouldn’t be sold, but how do you differentiate (paraphernalia from legitimate products) with language?" O’Neill said of recent meetings he’s had with smoking-product retailers and industry officials about his proposed ordinance.

Typical government moron douple speak. He inadvertently gives himself away. The fact that he can't clearly express the intent of the desired law in simple English language should tell him he's meddling in an area he shouldn't be. But that thought would never occur to a politician.

[Mr. K]

If you see your local corner store selling little glass tubes with a decorative tiny flower in them then call the manager and bitch at them for selling crack pipes.

To an ordinary person these look like a harmless little flower decoration- but they put copper brilo pad in them as a filter, and smoke crack from them

When my corner store started selling these me and the neighbors got together and went into the store and broke them all - several times. He stopped stocking them

[beltfed308]

But when members of the Philadelphia Police Department’s narcotics bureau and the Department of Licenses and Inspections’ nuisance task force targeted Artifax for a Sept. 7 raid, they were unaware of the shop’s unusual permit.

Wow!!!! keyword donutwatch deserved and added.

[DBrow]

Apples are drug paraphernalia?

[MinnesotaLibertarian]

ping

[beltfed308]

Opened in 1976, Artifax joined forces with five other similar businesses in 1982 to sue the city in federal court to protect their right to market certain smoking-related items. As a result of the suit, the plaintiffs were awarded city business permits that year allowing them to sell the items.
The list included pipes, tobacco products, screens, scales (for weighing loose smoking products), bongs, magazines, apparel and, believe it or not, "drug paraphernalia," a term that both federal and state law today use in the aforementioned context.

[grjr21]

To anyone with a working brain, it's obvious that this "check-cashing" place was a combination money laundry/drugdealing supply store.



Wrong
In the inner city you find quite a few check cashing places .
The poor often can't sustain a minimum balance to keep a checking account.
They are an extremely profitable if highly dangerous business( they tend to get robbed)

[Tennessee_Bob]

We had a local store selling the flowers in the glass tube - they had them bundled in a ziploc bag, along with a brillo pad and a lighter. And they were upset that the sheriff's department busted them for selling paraphernalia.

[ZGuy]

Time to come clean - For 35 years I've thought that Hookah was the smoking caterpillar's name.

[gcruse]

" the neighbors got together and went into the store and broke them all - several times. "

And you are proud of your vandalism? You should've been locked up.

[rockprof]

I used to roll my own cigarettes (back when I smoked). I always felt like a druggie buying the papers.

[Redcloak]

One of my favorite markets sells hookahs as well as the charcoal and flavored tobaccos to go with them. They're tempting, but I don't think that the Mrs. would go for a hookah on the coffee table.

[L98Fiero]

I'm glad Philly is so crime-free the cops have nothing better to do than harrass business-owners.

Marijuana is a naturally growing plant. Poision ivy does more harm but is perfectly legal. I cannot get over the retardation of that.

[NYFriend]

Re: destroying those little glass rose tubes.

I don't believe those glass rose tubes serve any legitimate purpose. I believe they are intended to be used as crack/meth pipes. If you could ban selling useless pieces of glass tubing, I'd be all for it. There's no way to write that law. Banning glass tubes with paper roses in them won't help, because then you can just put some other stupid thing in them. That law can't be written.

That said, those things are legal. If vigilantes are allowed to come to your place of business and destroy legal items that they believe serve no legitimate purposes, then gun stores better watch out for liberals. (In some places you are as likely to get shot in a gas station as a gun store, and just because gun shop owners can defend themselves doesn't make it OK to target defenseless businesses).

Sorry, that's how freedom works. He can make money off things we think are destructive, and gun shops can sell the guns that liberals think are destructive.

[wideawake]

In the inner city you find quite a few check cashing places

Of course you can. But legitimate ones cash checks, they don't sell baggies, scales, empty vials and other drugdealing paraphernalia.

This one did.

[wideawake]

And I'm sure the liberal courts backed them in their bid to sell drugdealing supplies openly.

Scales and vials? Please.

[Mr. K]

Yes I am- there were selling crack pipes

Now they don't

Which do you think is worse?