Hemp festival rolls on
Steve Powers of Tehama County smokes medical marijuana in the booth of the THC Inc. collective of Corning on Saturday at WHEE 2010.
Worries from law enforcement officials and neighbors that a Memorial Day weekend hemp festival in Red Bluff would lead to trouble had so far proven unfounded Saturday.
“It’s been real, real quiet,” Tehama County Sheriff Clay Parker said Saturday afternoon while sitting inside a sheriff’s office travel-trailer parked across the street from the World Hemp Expo Extravaganja, also known as WHEE 2010.
Parker said there was one incident Friday involving someone shoplifting a pipe from a merchant and another report of someone getting drunk and being disruptive, but those problems were all handled by the security staff.
Parker said the festival’s music was turned off right at 9 p.m. Friday, like the event organizers said it would be, and there haven’t been complaints from neighbors or festivalgoers.
“If you talk to the people down there, it’s all ‘peace and love,’ ” Parker said.
Jerry Doran, a festival coordinator, said the calm, friendly atmosphere was to be expected, given that more than 100 volunteers were helping to spread the overall message behind the event.
“We just want to show everyone that we can use cannabis in a safer manner than what I’ve been exposed to in pharmaceutical land,” he said.
Doran, 56, is a Red Bluff medical marijuana patient who lost the use of his legs in 1985 when the car he was riding in was hit by a drunken driver.
An estimated 1,000 people attended Friday’s event. Three times that number were expected to attend Saturday, the second day of the three-day festival on a 46-acre ranch along a creek on Riverside Avenue south of Red Bluff, Doran said.
So far, no other vandalism had been reported after someone late last week shot or drilled holes in a trio of large water tanks on the property.
The festival, which was granted a permit Tuesday, had spurred worries from neighbors. Tehama County officials had to update the county’s event ordinance to accommodate the festival.
Some in the subdivision on the south side of the festival remained unhappy about having so many people swarm the area, but even the most vocal complainers said that, so far, their worries about problems were unfounded.
“So far, it’s been pretty good,” said Steven Ismail, 43, one of the neighbors most vocally opposed to the festival. “There’s been issues with the intersection with people stopped in the road asking for directions. But other than that, it hasn’t been that bad.”
Ismail’s objection to the festival was still there Saturday, but it was more philosophical.
He said he’s had to have conversations with his young children who saw festivalgoers smoking pot on television news reports.
“Those are talks we should be having when they’re old enough to actually understand,” he said.
Other neighbors said they were similarly appalled at seeing families bringing young children inside the festival.
Doran’s partner, Donna Will, said children were allowed inside because there were designated smoking areas for adult patients with a physician’s recommendation to use medicinal marijuana.
Not all neighbors complained about the disruption.
Some, like Cathy Copeland, 56, relished the opportunity to bring something new to Tehama County, a community known more for its rodeo, bull and gelding sale, monster truck rallies and jet boat races than its counterculture scene.
“From the time I was in high school there was always a war between the hippies and the cowboys,” she said. “It looks like the hippies are winning. We still have a rodeo; why not have a hemp festival? It’s called diversity.”
Inside the festival, booths were set up in a large ring around a several-hundred-yard-wide cut and tilled field. The booths included sellers offering glass pipes and bongs and tie-dyed clothing. Local food vendors sold ribs, funnel cakes and hot dogs.
Local marijuana collectives also had booths advertising their services, and bands played on a stage next to a large booth advertising High Times, the iconic pot-culture magazine.
The pungent smell of marijuana occasionally wafted over.
Will said the collectives weren’t allowed to sell marijuana. Organizers also had asked doctors to come so they could give discounted examinations to patients who might need medicinal marijuana. But, so far, none was able to come on short notice, she said.
The festival had the atmosphere of a street fair. People perused the booths. Others practiced disc golf. Some sat in the shade, talking and smoking pot.
Outside the ring of booths, some had set up tents for the night.
One of the more popular, and unusual, attractions was Kelsea Risley, 22, of Corning, who walked around bare-chested with marijuana leaves pasted over her breasts. Several men and women stopped to pose for pictures with her.
Risley was advertising for Trichome Farm Consultants in Corning. The pot leaves were grown there, she said.
“We’re taking over,” she said. “People should be free to medicate.”
But, outside the event, local police and sheriff’s deputies made their presence known, although Parker said deputies were staying out of the festival unless something happened.
At least two sheriff’s patrol cars were parked outside Parker’s trailer.
The cars would drive off periodically to cruise slowly up and down Riverside Avenue so deputies could watch the crowd.
“Our response time is going to be a minute or less if there’s an issue,” Parker said.
Record Searchlight photographer Andreas Fuhrmann contributed to this report.
