The O-town Scene - Oneonta, NY
Issue link: https://www.ifoldsflip.com/i/25742
R.o.B.S. A. Woman busted for growing greens indoors ARCATA, Calif. _ Imagine Stuart Weiss- man’s surprise to open the door of his Bayside cottage at 4 a.m. Monday morning to see a DEA squad in full regalia. “These guys were ready to do battle,” the 70-year-old grandfather of three recounted from his living room earlier this week. “They were armed to the teeth.” Pushing Weissman aside, the drug squad stormed into the redwood cottage and filed into the basement, guns drawn. There they found what they were looking for: a grow room, lit to midday brightness by several thousand watts of artificial light. Every avail- able inch of the long tables, stretching from end to end of the room, were blanketed in lush, green foliage, with some plants stretching up to almost touch the banks of lights. But it wasn’t marijuana. Instead, the plants bur- dening Weissman’s tables were laden with every- thing from asparagus to zucchini. “This is my garden,” Weissman said, gestur- ing to the tables in his basement. “This is where I grow my food.” Weissman built his home more than 40 years ago on a postage-stamp- sized plot of land in the steep hills west of Arcata Bay. Nestled among the trees, his cottage hogs nearly all of Weissman’s lot, leaving hardly enough space for a stray blade of grass, let alone an entire Victory Garden. The septuagenarian began tending his seeds months ago, with some help from secondhand growing equipment he found on CraigsList. But his growing energy bills and the infrared footprint 26 O-Town Scene Feb. 24, 2011 of his hillside hideaway caught the eye of the Humboldt County Drug Task Force, which scrutinizes these factors and more to weed out illicit cannabis-growing operations. This is certainly not the Task Force’s first gaffe. The county was sued twice last year by area residents who claimed the task force caused property damage during similarly fruitless searches. But Weissman doesn’t plan to pursue any legal action. “I’m just glad my tomatoes are OK,” Weissman said. “I’m supposed to make spaghetti for my granddaughter’s birthday this weekend.” It’s hard to tell what’s true these days. Take a gander be- low, and guess if A. and B. are Real or B.S. (Answers at the bottom of the page.) B. Restaurant backs off of cult cocktail reference SOUTH BEND, Ind. _ A northern Indiana restaurant that erected billboards referring to the 1978 Jonestown cult massacre in which more than 900 people died has removed the signs following complaints that the signs were offensive. Jeff Leslie, vice president of sales and marketing at Ha- cienda, acknowl- edged that the billboards were a mistake. He said the South Bend- based company ordered the signs removed less than two weeks into Hacienda’s new advertising campaign. “Our role is not to be controver- sial or even edgy. We want to be noticed _ and there’s a differ- ence,” Leslie told the South Bend Tribune. “We have a responsi- bility to (adver- tise) with care, and that’s why we’re pulling this ad. We made a mistake and don’t want to have a negative image in the community.” The billboards included the statement, “We’re like a cult with better Kool-Aid,” over a glass containing a mixed drink, as well as the phrase “To die for!” In November 1978, more than 900 mem- bers of Jim Jones’ People’s Temple drank cyanide-laced, grape-flavored punch in a mass murder and suicide in the group’s com- pound in Guyana. Patricia Barbera-Brown of South Bend, who lives a few blocks away from one of the billboards, said she was so shocked when she initially read the message that she drove around the block. “I thought perhaps I had misread the sign,” she recalls. “It brought back quite a few horrible images and memories, and the very notion that a local restaurant would trivialize such a worldwide tragedy to simply increase their sales of cocktails is outrageous to me, and it offended me to the core.” She sent an e-mail to Hacienda’s executive telling them the billboards weren’t “funny at all,” calling them “extremely offensive and very irresponsible marketing.” Hacienda ex- ecutives respond- ed in writing, apologizing for offending her and informing her that the billboards would be taken down. Like many res- taurant compa- nies, Leslie said Hacienda uses billboard adver- tising to connect with the commu- nity and resonate with customers. He said that company leaders look every year at their restaurants, the economy, their customers, and the competi- tion to determine an idea or theme to use for advertising. As they brainstormed about how people belong to clubs and teams, he said they discussed how an entity can develop a cult following of like-minded people. “It went the wrong direction, hit a nerve, and we have come to realize we should not have done this billboard. We lose the core mes- sage,” he said. Katherine Sredl, assistant professor of mar- keting at the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, agreed that the company’s message came across wrong. “They want people to think there are more things to love there than the food, but it’s not the right humor for its clientele,” she said. A. is B.S., by Emily Popek; B. is real.