WHERE THERE'S SMOKE

A New Store In New Britain Is Trying To Change The Way We Think About
Head Shops

A few daisies would look nice in these "glass vases." Larry Goodwin,
the owner of Snot Locker in New Britain, hates the term "head shop."
Standing behind the counter of his store, among his stock of organic
hemp balm, scales, fake soda can stash spots, pipes, bongs and
hookahs, Goodwin insisted that he isn't running a head shop. And,
surprisingly, I found myself agreeing with him.

"It's a lifestyle store. People call it a head shop, but it's so much
more than that," Goodwin said. "I don't know many other head shops
that sell soap."

And soap is indeed for sale at Snot Locker. Along with other
seemingly nonintuitive items like chimes, hundreds of cult DVDs
(ranging from Kieslowski's color trilogy to PCU ) and CDs from local
artists. The store, which is named for an antiquated nickname for a
nose and opened in October, is brightly lit, playfully themed and upbeat.

"It's not your father's smoke shop," Goodwin said.

Entering a store like Snot Locker usually entails some weird parsing
of language. A lot of really good, direct colloquial terms need to be
discarded. Several words have to be avoided at the buyer's peril,
like "bong," "marijuana" or even "bowl." That's not an issue at Snot Locker.

"It's a bong," Goodwin said with a shrug after I asked him what I was
supposed to call one of the three-foot-tall cylinders with bowls
affixed to them.

Broadly speaking, the legality of selling items like these is
predicated on intent. Smoking devices are considered objects with
many uses, including, but not limited to, illegal ones. For example,
a multi-chambered water pipe could be used for its nominal purpose,
smoking tobacco, or as a vase, or it could even be dropped off a
building to watch it break.

"Do you go into Walgreens and say, 'I'm going to buy some toilet
paper to wipe my ass with'?" Andy Snyder, manager for Hartford smoke
accessory emporium Stairway Thru Heaven said.

Keith Stroup, an attorney for the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), said small-business owners should
put up signs advising that none of the items they sell are to be used
for illegal substances.

The federal law and individual states' laws governing paraphernalia
are different. In 1994, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Posters
'n' Things, Ltd., et al., Petitioners v. United States that the
government could impose a "subjective standard" about what items
could be considered paraphernalia. The case ruling also defined
specific paraphernalia items, such as pipes, wired cigarette papers
and bongs, as illegal paraphernalia.

Until 2003 the law was rarely enforced. In 2003 and 2004 the John
Ashcroft-led Justice Department launched "Operation Pipe Dreams" and
"Operation Headhunter," which specifically targeted drug-accessory
sales. In February 2003, 55 businesses and individuals were charged
with trafficking in illegal drug paraphernalia, including iconic
comedic actor Tommy Chong, who served nine months in prison.

Stroup said while the federal law is in place, the individual states
generally decide how enthusiastically it'll be enforced.
Connecticut's enforcement has been more relaxed.

Connecticut State Police public information officer Sgt. J. Paul
Vance confirmed that merchant sales of smoking tools is legal.

"If you have a water pipe, it can be used legally. So in and of
itself, it's not illegal," Vance said. However, paraphernalia charges
do exist in Connecticut. If someone is found with an illegal
substance and a method of delivering that substance, paraphernalia
charges follow.

"If someone just has cigarette papers, it's not paraphernalia. But if
we find them with marijuana and paraphernalia, we charge them," Vance said.

Tracy Beaudoin, who recently took over 32-year-old Stairway Thru
Heaven after working as a manager there for 11 years, said that she
has never had any legal trouble at the store.

"Everything here is legal," Beaudoin said.

The store used to post a list of forbidden words, but Beaudoin said
that the sign is no longer necessary. "It's just common knowledge. If
you use those terms we'll kick you out. It happens on a daily basis," she said.