Pubdate: Sat, 08 Sep 2012
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2012 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Mike Debonis

CAPITOL HEMP BLOWS OUT THE LIGHTS

D.C. Store Closes in Wake of Oct. Police Raid

Adam Eidinger stands next to the wall and gives it a good, solid 
knock. "Hemp board," he says. "First retail store to be built out of 
it. It's held up remarkably well."

Eidinger and business partner Alan Amsterdam imported 2,000 pounds of 
the stuff from China while building Capitol Hemp in an Adams Morgan 
basement four years ago. Since then, hempboard shelves have held 
products also made of non-psychoactive strains of industrial cannabis 
- - soap, paper, shoes, coats, hats. Dog beds and wood stain, even.

But no longer. Friday was Capitol Hemp's last day of business.

The reason lies in the back of the store, behind a closed door. 
There, more hemp shelves held dozens of delicate glass pipes and 
other intricate smoking devices.

In October, D.C. police raided the shop and a Capitol Hemp location 
in Chinatown, now closed. They arrested six employees and seized 
$350,000 worth of glassware, alleging that its sale violated the 
city's drug paraphernalia laws. To get their merchandise back and 
avoid criminal prosecution, Eidinger and Amsterdam agreed in April to 
close their D.C. shops.

On Friday, a steady crowd filed in for one last time to check out 
shirts and hats, many sporting images of cannabis leaves. Some 
inspected discount pieces of artisan glassware - don't use the B-word 
- - that retail for hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars.

Its owners, meanwhile, stood in the shop commiserating with customers 
and soon-to-be-laidoff employees about doing business in a city where 
residents and elected officials have long supported medical marijuana 
and liberal politics, but police and prosecutors have taken a hard 
line on enforcing drug laws.

"We've been legal. We've paid our taxes. We've gotten all our 
permits," Amsterdam said. "When you do everything by the book, you 
expect a little bit more."

The shop now sells T-shirts with the words "Banned in D.C." - a nod 
to the famed Bad Brains song. William Miller, a spokesman for the 
U.S. attorney's office in the District, declined to comment on the 
shop's prosecution.

When open, Capitol Hemp walked a fine line, promoting everyday uses 
of industrial hemp while selling items readily used for smoking 
marijuana and other artifacts of pot-smoking culture in a bright, 
cheery, patchouli-free environment. Its closing comes not long after 
Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) personally hit the streets to take a hard 
line on drug paraphernalia. In July, he took a walking tour of 
Congress Heights to lobby convenience store clerks to stop selling 
rolling papers and "blunt" cigars.

Capitol Hemp doesn't sell blunts, but it does sell tobacco and 
rolling papers in addition to the glassware. In the back room, 
restricted to those 18 and older, signs tell patrons "All Tobacco 
Accessories Intended for Legal Use Only" and "Do Not Make References 
to Anything Illegal or You Will Be Asked to Leave."

While the merchandise might have raised the hackles of law 
enforcement, its neighbors in the bar-and-restaurant-packed area have 
few concerns about residing near "one of the top glass stores on the 
East Coast," as Amsterdam calls the shop.

"I never heard any complaints about them," said Kristen Barden, 
executive director of the Adams Morgan Partnership, a neighborhood 
business group. "I've heard from a couple of business owners that are 
really sad to to see them close. ... We've had a hard time attracting 
retailers. Here's an example of another retailer leaving."

At the time of the raid, Capitol Hemp's two locations employed 11. 
That's now down to four. All of them, Eidinger said, were paid solid 
wages and health benefits.

Now Capitol Hemp is going Internet-only, and Amsterdam is scouting 
potential locations for a shop in the suburbs. Eidinger, whose 
criminal charges were dropped in August, is exploring other ideas for 
the basement space - a fallout-shelter-themed nightclub, perhaps - so 
far, to little avail.

Eidinger said he's been "resigned for months," left pondering the 
inanity of it all. "It's really lame to walk away from a business 
that's making money," he said. "The city is just giving up $150,000 a 
year in tax revenue. It's just giving it up. That's dumb."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom