SOOOOO, I trudge through the snow to their meeting & tell 'em:
             Mr. Mayor, City Council Representatives, members of the
             media, and interested parties:
                  I would to especially thank the media for bringing this
             issue to my attention.  I have received no indication from
             any other party that these events were scheduled to take
             place.
                  My name is Steve Ross, I am a forty-five year old
             father of two, I have been married for twenty-one years, am
             a lifelong resident of Clay County.  I have recently
             completed twenty-five years of employment with one company,
             which brought me into contact with hundreds of residents of
             this city and county, and I belive I have a reputation for
             hard work, good service, and fair treatment.  A number of
             people in this room know me, and have known me for a long
             time.
                  My wife and I have operated a retail business for ten
             years which is now potentially impacted by your proposed
             Municipal Ordinance # 6-3-28.  Our store is Rainy Day Music,
             located at 512 Grand Ave., engaged primarily in the business
             of selling pre-recorded music and related items, as well as
             jewelry, incense, posters, stickers, magazines, and other
             rock and roll novelty items and other non-musical wares, now
             referred to as "drug paraphernalia".  If you have never
             visited our store, I would like to invite you to do so,
             we're a good under-twenty-dollar last-minute-Christmas-gift-
             destination.  One display case in our store, measuring
             perhaps six square feet or so, and several linear feet of
             shelving on one of our walls house a number of items which
             we suspect may be items #7 in your proposed ordinance.
                  It would appear that these items in question at our
             store might be used to ingest, inhale, or otherwise
             introduce into the human body a controlled substance,
             specifically marijuana, and I would like to point out that
             we seem to have no *other* "qualifiers".  In fact, we are
             not certain, and will be anxious to receive some kind of
             official opinion.
                  I do not espouse drug usage and in fact, am protective
             of my personal sobriety, a matter I do not care to discuss
             publicly, but suffice it to say that I am familiar with the
             havoc that unbridled substance abuse can wreak.
                  Having said all those things, I would like to expose
             you to a few observations, and then let you get along about
             your business.
             I.   We have operated under the assumption that we were
             engaged in legal commerce-if the definitions of legal
             commerce are modified by the city, we will comply to the
             best of our ability, despite my personal belief that drug
             use promotes, fosters, and enables the use of
             paraphernalia, not the other way around as enumerated in
             the preamble to the ordinace.
             II.  The portion of the ordinance pertaining to "display and
             sale" are anti-business in nature.  Some local merchants may
             sell a variety of products upon which society may place a
             moral stigma (alcohol, rental movies depicting sexual
             activity or violence, tobacco, certain abusable over-the-
             counter drugs, certain types of garments, even
             environmentally "unsafe" products such as gasoline or
             tires).  These merchants may want to take note of this
             ordinance before you now, and consider its possible
             ramifications for them in the future.
             III. Prohibition-style rules glorify outlawed behavior.
                  "Headshops", as we are sometimes called, historically
             exist and are glorified BECAUSE of prohibited behavior.  Our
             store, or a store previously at our location have been
             offering this type of merchandise for over a quarter of a
             century.  If you suddenly can't buy a ten dollar purple pipe
             at our store after all this time, that same piece of
             paraphernalia becomes pretty sacred when you have to drive
             all the way to Minneapolis to get it.  "Martyrizing" a store
             with a twenty-five year history of peaceful coexistance with
             the community will only damage the credibility of lawmakers.
             IV.  The police don't need another tool.  In fact, we ARE
             another tool.  If the disruption of the user community is a
             high priority item with law enforcement (or anyone else),
             they have only to sit outside our parking lot and write down
             license plate numbers, and then do what they please with
             that information.  In the instance where an individual is
             apprehended with paraphernalia containing drug residue, the
             presence of the controlled substance itself is all that law
             enforcement needs to affect an arrest-that the "container"
             of the residue is subject to further legal difficulties just
             fosters contempt of the law by any thinking individual.
                  If we are involved in (or even close to) criminal
             behavior, we are subject to existing laws which are
             effective already.  We cannot conspire to commit a crime
             with any drug user, we cannot possess or distribute any
             controlled substances.  We cannot sell tobacco products or
             products intended to be use with them to minors.  No amount
             of legislation designed to hide the presence of drugs from
             our eyes will alter the behavior or people, nor will it
             amplify our responsibility to existing law.
             V.   The community doesn't need another law.  We are willing
             to work with local authorities to conform to their standards
             of "acceptibility" of our merchandise.  A simple visit to
             our store along with an enlightened conversation will
             probably achieve our protagonists' desired results.
             VI.  We collect taxes.  Paraphernalia for ingesting
             marijuana is easily assembled from household items,
             automotive parts, plumbing supplies, school supplies, and
             other miscellaneous hardware.  A black market in these
             items, potentially created by a prohibition-style ordinance
             will not be accountable to the Department of Revenue and
             Finance.
             VII. A few of the items we stock now bear a United States
             patent number.  Are these items subject to the local
             ordinance?  Does the United States patent items which are
             inherently illegal?
             VIII. We market (and enjoy sales of) several herbal smoking
             blends, or tobacco alternatives.  The physical consistency
             of these herbs is very similar to marijuana, and the pipes
             we market are especially well-adapted to ingesting, inhaling
             or otherwise introducing into the human body these
             substances which are NOT unlawful under the Controlled
             Substances Act.  Are there provisions for this ambiguous
             situation?
                  I wish those of you involved in local retailing a happy
             and prosperous Christmas season, unhampered by outside
             interference and regulation, I thank the Council for its
             time and consideration, and pray to my Higher Power that the
             outcome in this matter be an equitable one.
 * SLMR 2.1a * And all I can say now, is ain't it a shame....
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