Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Council panel targets novelty glassware

Novelty glassware that can double as crack pipes soon could be illegal in Spokane.

A city prosecutor was urged Monday by members of the Spokane City Council’s Public Safety Committee to add the items to a proposed expansion of the ordinance prohibiting drug paraphernala.

City officials became aware the items were being sold in stores when a resident brought it to their attention last month. Since then, the city attorney’s office has been researching the law to see if it can be changed.

The novelty items are sold in gas stations and convenience stores under marketing names such as Love Roses, Happy Valentine Glass Roses or Romantic Roses.

Spokane resident Mike Conrad proposed that the City Council change the law to ban the glass pipes after he found the items at more than 12 locations in Spokane and Spokane Valley.

Conrad was outraged when he discovered that not only could he buy the glass pipes, some of which were not even disguised, but store clerks would sell them to juveniles.

The 23-year-old found an ally in Mayor Mary Verner, who urged the city attorney’s office to start working on the law.

Drug paraphernalia is illegal, said Howard Delaney, a Spokane city prosecutor working on the statute. The city ordinance just needs to be more specific, and the proposed change would require City Council approval.

Delaney is looking to model Spokane’s ordinance after Pierce County’s drug paraphernalia statute, which specifies items such as the thin glass tubes with a flower inside that are often passed off as novelties. Pierce County’s law also includes the phrase – “whether useful for non-drug related purposes or not.”

Selling such items would be considered a civil infraction, like a traffic ticket, officials said.