QUIRKY WORLD ... Marijuana industry’s ‘Green Mile’ peace offering rejected by stony-faced antique dealers
The booming new marijuana industry has an image problem. Not with government officials and the public — but with other businesses.
From crime fears to smell complaints, new marijuana retailers and growers face suspicion and antagonism from their commercial neighbours, especially in Denver, which now has 200 marijuana retailers and dozens of pot growing and manufacturing facilities.
The strife went public recently along a once-forlorn stretch of highway south of downtown Denver now sprinkled with marijuana shops. About two dozen pot shops along this stretch of Broadway, often dubbed “Broadsterdam”, had a marketing idea for the Christmas shopping season — join forces with nearby antique shops to market the area as “The Green Mile”.
The pot shops called a meeting, expecting an enthusiastic response from neighbours that have seen boarded-up storefronts replaced with bustling pot shops with lines out the door. Instead, the suggestion unleashed a torrent of anger from antique dealers.
“We don’t want to work with you,” said James Neisler, owner of Heidelberg Antiques. “Your customers, they’re the long-haired stinky types. They go around touching everything and they don’t buy anything.”
The meeting went downhill from there. It’s a clash that is playing out in other communities in Colorado and Washington that allow marijuana businesses — and could stretch to other states now that Alaska, Oregon, and Washington DC have all legalised recreational pot.
Pill-making machines and a pair of glasses thought to have belonged to notorious poisoner Dr Crippen are to go under the hammer next week.
Northamptonshire-based auction house JP Humbert is also offering poison bottles recovered from the workplace of Hawley Harvey Crippen, who was hanged at London’s Pentonville Prison in 1910 for murdering his wife, Cora.
A brooch thought to have been owned by Cora is also on sale at the auction in Towcester on November 19. Crippen, who was born in the US, is believed to have used hyoscine to kill Cora at his London home before attempting to flee to Canada.
It started as a rescue story, but authorities said it turned out to be a marriage apparently beyond saving.
When a red Corvette plunged into a Philadelphia river, marine units were sent down to search for a possible victim inside.
However, they found nobody and the 1990 Corvette was later raised from 9m of water. It turned out that a man going through a divorce had sent the car his wife drives into the river.
The Mexican government has said as many as half of the pre-Hispanic artifacts listed for sale in a Bonhams auction in New York are fake. After sending experts to view the pieces, Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History now says 50% are relatively recently made copies.
That was higher than its earlier claim that 25% were fakes. It said Bonhams should stop the sale, because the other 50% of the items are national heritage pieces.
The lots include about 155 sculptures, ceramic vessels and other artefacts from the Aztec, Mayan, and other cultures.
A Maine man who authorities originally said fell to the sidewalk while rappelling down a fire escape after breaking into a Portland flower shop was actually part of a stunt that had gone awry.
Ronald Podlaski told the Portland Press Herald he was trying to surprise a friend on Saturday by sneaking up the fire escape and climbing in her apartment window.
However, somewhere along the way he became a little lost.
The 29-year-old Podlaski, an artist who uses the name RookSye, says he got the wrong building and ended up in the florist.
He says he fell from a third-floor window after realising his mistake and tripping the alarm. He suffered minor injuries. He says he’d been drinking beer and what he did was “foolish”.
Authorities have decided not to charge him. However, Podlaski plans to apologise to the florist.
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