05/09/1988 Meeting (2) - Laserfiche WebLink

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e III. PUBLIC HEARING: ORDINANCE REGULATING THE SALE OF DRUG PARAPHERNALIA e e Vic Mann of the Department of Public Safety presented the item. He said the Public Safety Department and the City Attorney's Office have researched the regulation of drug paraphernalia sales as requested by the council. Mr. Mann said he wished to make it clear that this was not the first and only action taken by the City regarding drug problems. The City of Eugene Narcotics Unit has been recognized as one of the most active narcotics units in the country, particularly in regard to methamphetamines. During the last legislative session, the City actively lobbied the legislature to develop the chemical precursor law, making it more difficult to produce methamphetamines in Ore- gon. The City had also worked on a number of drug-related bills during that session, and planned to continue this work. Mr. Mann said the department is implementing a new program focusing on repeat offenders in drug-related offenses. Mr. Mann said there have been two basic approaches to regulating the sale of drug paraphernalia. The most obvious is to ban the sale of paraphernalia. Other agencies Mr. Mann contacted unanimously reported that this sort of ban has had limited effect, particularly in the area of regulating business sales. Such a ban required covert operations that took many resources and were not cost-effective given the other drug problems the agencies faced. Only one agency contacted reported using the ban successfully to prosecute a business. The second approach towards regulating the sale of paraphernalia was the use of a business license. Bend and Roseburg both have license laws and reported that they were able to enforce the law with minimal effort; the affected businesses either choose to discontinue their product line or com- plied with the law. Mr. Mann said the Department of Public Safety favors the business license approach for both practical and legal reasons. The ordi- nance would be enforceable and would change the way drug paraphernalia was marketed in the community. Citizens have expressed concern about the appar- ent availability of drug paraphernalia and the message this sends to juve- niles. The ordinance would require businesses to have drug paraphernalia items out-of-sight to juveniles, and could be enforced using current business license procedures within the department. It would be enforced in a manner similar to those ordinances regulating pawn shops; the ordinance would re- quire businesses selling drug paraphernalia to obtain a business license from the City, which would be issued through the Permit and Information Center, with the Department of Public Safety responsible for background investiga- tions and ordinance enforcement. Mr. Mann discussed the requirements for maintaining a business license: the area where paraphernalia is sold must be isolated from other areas of the store, and persons under 18 will not allowed in those areas; paraphernalia sales must be recorded, and those records will be open to police officers' inspection; employees of the businesses cannot have a conviction for drug crimes (not including less than an ounce viola- tions). If businesses fail to follow the license regulations, the license can be suspended; upon the third violation within two years, the business drug paraphernalia inventory would be subject to forfeiture proceedings. If MINUTES--Eugene City Council May 9, 1988 Page 3