OFFICIALS WISH THIS SNOWMAN WOULD MELT

Anyone can tell from the grimace and the gun that this is one snowman
that won't be making it into any fluffy Christmas song.

But the full menace of the T-shirt is more clouded. On the bottom, it
reads "Got SnowUKP' - a harmless play on the famous milk campaign to
some, a blatant reference to cocaine to many others, including
officials with New Hanover County Schools.

"We banned them two or three weeks ago," said Bob Grimes, the
principal of Laney High School. Like all county principals, he was
warned to keep an eye open for the shirts by the county's gang task
force. Still versions of the character are hot sellers at Street
Stuff in Westfield Independence mall, said J.R. Holmes, a sales
associate at the store. Buyers of all races and both sexes associate
them with rap, not drugs, he said. Young Jeezy, a drug-dealer turned
star rapper, popularized the angry image. His album Let's Get It:
Thug Motivation 101, debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard album charts
this summer. In one of his songs, he raps, "Get it? Jeezy the
Snowman/ I'm iced out, plus I got that snow, man." Snow is slang for cocaine.

The most common design features a simple snowman that looks like any
other cartoon snowman apart from a glaring brow, Holmes said. "I
can't see why'd they ban that," he said. "If it said 'Frosty the
Snowman' on the back of the shirt, would they be able to wear it to
school? I think so. Most kids see it as a fashion thing." But the
endorsement of drugs is clear to others. Local rapper Michael Evans,
who performs as "Access," said he sees the shirts everywhere and
wholeheartedly agrees with keeping them out of schools. "That's just
like going to school with a shirt of a weed plant that says 'Got
Green)" the 20-year-old said. "I don't want that on me because I
don't got snow." Frankie Aziz, who runs a clothing shop on Greenfield
Street, said he stopped selling the shirts several months ago after
two law enforcement officers came in and told him they preferred he
didn't. He said he didn't want to worry about it.

The snowman is old news to the New Hanover County gang task force, a
combined effort of law enforcement, school and county resources that
was organized last year to nip nascent gang problems in the bud. The
shirts were on a list of warning signs sent to school resource
officers and principals several months ago. It included gang graffiti
tags as well as potentially problematic clothing.

Wearing the snowman T-shirt doesn't make someone a gang member, said
school board member Steve Bilzi, a task force member. But the schools
don't want any glorification of gang-related activity, he said. "We
don't want to validate gangs in the schools or give them an inch
anywhere," he said.

County Commissioner Nancy Pritchett, the chairwoman of the task
force, said the list of gang signs was not public information and was
for law enforcement only. The task force printed a generic brochure
this week informing parents about gangs.

Calls to detectives in the gang task force were not returned Friday.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.