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Parent Issue
Day
26
Month
July
Year
1974
OCR Text

Ypsi $5 Weed Law Invalidated

Smoke-in Smokes Out City Council

To retaliate against Judge Thomas A. Shea's ruling on July 11 that Ypsilanti's $5 maximum penalty week ordinance was "void in it's entirety", Ypsilanti's HRP steering committee called for a special meeting of Ypsi's city council to ask that body for support of the ordinance. The HRP committee called the meeting for July 17 and also called for a massive "smoke-in" demonstration to show council that the ordinance would not die from apathy.

A crowd of about 300 responded. Starting at around seven, they trickled to the city hall with joints of mexican, jamaican, columbian; and some chunks of afghani hash. They brought entertainment, in the form of "spaceman baseman" and his guerilla theatre. They brought a 20-ft. "free weed" banner and they brought Zolton Ferency, HRP candidate for governor, from East Lansing.

But they didn't bring the Councilpeople.

The councilpeople were on their own for the night and most of them were mysteriously absent. Out of the eleven council members only three showed up, HRP Councilmen Harold Baize and Eric Jackson, the two councilmembers who called the special meeting, and Democratic councilwoman Susan Lindsay.

COUNCIL CIRCUS

From the beginning, the meeting was a circus. As it became apparent that no more councilmembers would be coming, the crowd lost its attitude for serious business and began to get rowdy. While the city clerk called off the roll in a monotone, the audience moaned, hissed and booed at the missing members.

Joints then appeared throughout the council chamber. It became obvious that the only issue at the was how to adjourn the meeting.

So the three councilmembers moved to have the meeting adjourned to Monday, July 29, when a regular meeting of city council is scheduled. Jackson urged people to come back at that time.

Baize said later that his intentions about calling the meeting had been to "get the city to support the ordinance. We wanted to get a commitment from council to act on the ordinance, like they did with the pornography ordinance." Baize said one of the proposals he had planned to make was to have city police check with council, while the ordinance is under appeal before turning any marijuana cases over to the State prosecutor.

DERELICT GOVERNMENT

Zolton Ferency said he was appalled by the council boycott. "A very serious public question has been postponed," he said. In this era of Watergate and wide public distrust of government, he said, it is particularly deplorable for elected officials to be "derelict."

Commenting on the ordinance issue, Ferency said he felt it is the city attorney's job to support ordinances that have been passed by a majority of the people. According to Ferency, that is exactly the situation in East Lansing, his home city, where a similar $5 pot ordinance has so far faced no problems.

Ferency also commented on the transcripts of the David Grey marijuana trial, during which Judge Thomas Shea ruled that the city ordinance "flies directly into the face of state law."

"To dispose of this case with this skimpy treatment of it is completely unsatisfactory," he said, holding up the court documents. He added that it was "ridiculous" and '"incomprehensible" for Shea to have cited a 1908 constitutional law when the state of Michigan is now under a constitution written in 1963.

VIOLENCE AT THE STADIUM

Mayor George D. Goodman was the only council member who earlier said he would not be at the meeting due to a prior commitment. Goodman was an honorary guest at the Wheel's football game along with Mayor Coleman Young and Governor William Milliken. The other councilmembers, when contacted the next day, said they had either prior commitments or personal business.

As the meeting inside ended, some Human Rights Party leaders spoke to the crowd Trom the top of city halls steps. Through the portable bullhorn, they rallied the people to march on the Rynearson football stadium "where the rest of the councilmembers are." About sixty people joined in this march, singing songs and passing joints along the way. They reached the stadium and circled it once when, according to HRP treasurer Gerald Gainor, a man rushed out from the football fan crowd and tore their twenty-toot "free weed" banner in half.

Gainor said the Eastern Michigan University police then pushed themselves between this spectator and the demonstrators. One of the policemen tried to take away their portable bullhorn, Gainor added, so the demonstrators had to place themselves in a semi-circle around the person carrying the bullhorn, and this luckily created a standoff.

As for the David Grey case, Judge Shea sent it up to Circuit Court, where the validity of his ruling will be challenged by Grey's attornies. The fate of Ypsi's $5 law will probably then take several more appeals before being fully resolved.

Dan O'Grady