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Letter

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Parent Issue
Month
May
Year
1989
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Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)
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Agenda Publications
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LETTERS

HASH BASHERS NOT TO BLAME FOR RIOT

There's been a lot of finger pointing when it comes to who's responsible for the vandalism on S. University on the night of April 1. Officials from the South University Merchants Association blame the City of Ann Arbor for not having enough police on patrol. Officials from the City of Ann Arbor blame UM for not controlling their students. Officials from UM blame the Hash Bash, the $5 pot law and the Grateful Dead concerts of April 5 and 6. According to an Ann Arbor News article, U-M Vice President of Student Services Johnson vowed that, as a consequence of the vandalism that occurred on April 1 , the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) would not be granted future permits for the Diag.

On April 1, NORML estimates that at least 2,500 people were at the Diag at the peak of the Hash Bash, and as many as 5,000 people passed through the Diag at one time or another throughout the afternoon. The crowd was in a peaceful and festive mood, and when one speaker told the crowd to sit down, the crowd sat down. I saw no rowdyism or vandalism on the Diag, and if there was any public consumption of alcohol, it was isolated and minimal, i've heard that the police agree that the crowd was well behaved.

Later in the afternoon NORML held a private benefit far from the Diag and campus area. After the benefit and the basketball game were over, I drove a NORML member back to his apartment at Forest and S. University and found that the police had barricaded the street. I became curious and walked to Church and S. University to observe the crowd for myself. What I found was a different looking crowd than had gathered at the Diag earlier. This crowd was drunken, shouting and in some instances, very rude. They were noticably younger and less hippyish-looking than the Diag crowd. Beer cans and broken beer bottles literally filled the streets. I left long before any vandalism occurred and I was thoroughly convinced that whatever this crowd did, it would be ludicrous to link it to the Diag crowd.

It would be easy to blame the basketball game itself for what my friends now call the "Basketball Riot." Perhaps the university should considering withdrawing from the NCAA Tournament. But since the university made over $600,000 from the tournament, I doubt that will happen. Even if the university paid for all the damages, which I believe they have a moral duty, but not a legal duty to pay, they would still make over half a million dollars. I read in the Ann Arbor News that U-M President Duderstadt will not authorize payments to the City of Ann Arbor for the city's damages and expenses. There is no doubt in my mind that the university would prefer not to pay anyone anything, and they are using the Hash Bash and NORML as the reasons.

As for future events, I doubt the university can stop the Hash Bash. The Hash Bash has a life of its own; it's an Ann Arbor tradition. NORML still plans to have a Marijuana Law Protest April 1, 1990.

Rich Birkett, Coordinator, Ann Arbor NORML ANN ARBOR, MI

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