Pubdate: Sat, 25 Jun 2011 Source: Seattle Times (WA) Copyright: 2011 The Seattle Times Company Contact: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409 Author: Emily Heffter, Seattle Times Staff Reporter TACOMA HEMPFEST OWN SECURITY CITES VENDORS Tacoma Hempfest Organizers Said Several Vendors at the Saturday Event Were Cited for Selling Drug Paraphernalia -- by the Same Tacoma Police Officers the Organizers Hired to Work As Security at the Event. Angry Tacoma Hempfest organizers said several vendors at the Saturday event were cited for selling drug paraphernalia -- by the same Tacoma police officers the organizers hired to work as security at the event. Soon after Tacoma Hempfest opened in Wright Park at 11 a.m., police cited about 12 vendors selling pipes, bongs and other "tobacco-consumption products," said Michael Byers, a Hempfest organizer. They even cited a vendor selling Tupperware-like containers called "doob-tubes," he said. Vendors walk a fine line to keep their products technically legal under state laws. They sell glass pipes and bongs they say are for use with legal substances or by medical-marijuana patients, said Douglas Hiatt, an attorney for a group called Sensible Washington, whose members helped organize the event. "The Tacoma police are being way out of line doing this," Hiatt said. "The Seattle police walk past miles of glass, literally, at Seattle's Hempfest." Tacoma police spokesman Mark Fulghum was not available this weekend by cellphone. The police sergeant who led the officers writing citations did not return messages. The Metro Parks Tacoma spokeswoman did not return calls for comment. In the afternoon, Byers said, several officers came back through Hempfest, surrounded vendors and told them they would be arrested unless they stopped selling some products. Several vendors left the event, said organizers. Hempfest has a city permit, and vendors had to get individual business licenses, Byers said. As part of the permit, he said, Hempfest paid $7,000 to the city so Tacoma police would provide security, as they would for any festival. But the officers paid to provide security began writing citations, Byers said. The police sergeant in charge of security warned Byers and organizer Justin Prince earlier in the week that any kind of paraphernalia for sale could draw arrests or citations, but organizers thought they were covered. The same types of vendors found no trouble at last year's inaugural event, organizers said. Seattle's annual waterfront Hempfest draws hundreds of thousands of people, and vendors selling items that could be used to smoke marijuana abound. "I would not have done this had I had any notion ... that any of my people would be in jeopardy," said J.T. Tapp, whose Tacoma glass shop, The Green Room, was an event sponsor last year. Tapp said she hadn't been cited, but she recruited some suppliers who had. "I'm a little bit beside myself," she said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard R Smith Jr.