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Hempfest Sues, Says City Dragging Its Feet
Filing also cites Seattle Art Museum
Angela Galloway | Seattle Post-Intelligencer | 07/31/2006

The pot proponents are getting antsy.

The folks behind Seattle's Hempfest, a huge summer festival promoting marijuana legalization, filed a lawsuit against the city and the Seattle Art Museum on Monday.

The suit in King County Superior Court accuses park bureaucrats and the museum of taking too long to grant a permit for the event at Myrtle Edwards Park, adjacent to the museum's incoming sculpture park.

All sides agree the 15th annual event will go on as planned Aug. 19-20. But the museum and the city each said it's up to the other to take the next step.

Meanwhile, Hempfest officials say they need to nail down the details. For example, they have yet to make final how they'll bring in stages, portable toilets and other gear for crowds of 100,000 to 200,000 around the museum's construction zone on Elliott Avenue, Hempfest says. Nor do they know whether fire vehicles will have access to provide any needed first aid.

Hempfest applied for its permit Jan. 3, group organizers said. City laws say such requests should be processed within 60 days, they say. And still, they wait. They filed the suit to shake loose from officials the permit and logistical guidelines.

"The principal values of the Constitution's Bill of Rights needed to be preserved over the stubborn will of developers and the lethargic response of government bureaucrats," said Dominic Holden, who is on the board of directors of NORML and the city's marijuana policy reform panel.

Normally the permit would be issued by now, said Dewey Potter, spokeswoman for Seattle Parks and Recreation.

But the construction work adds a "new wrinkle" that has complicated the matter considerably. "It's just taking us longer to work out the issues," she said. "We're going to make this happen,"

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For example, Potter said, there's the question of whether the museum will have to stop construction work that weekend. "That's an issue for them. They have a firm opening date, and they want to meet it," Potter said.

At this point, Parks and Recreation can't issue the permit until it gets a letter from the museum addressing logistical questions raised by a Hempfest attorney July 21, Potter said.

But museum officials point to the city for the delay. They say Hempfest organizers already have a transportation plan in hand.

"It's not in our court," said Chris Rogers, project manager. "We've done everything that has been requested."

In fact, SAM says it has actually tried to speed up the process because it didn't believe it was moving fast enough, Rogers said.

"We've been meeting with Hempfest and representatives of the city for the past nine months to work on their event and to provide access in a manner consistent with access they've had in the past," Rogers said.

"Constructions projects are messy," Rogers added, noting that in the end, the city stands to gain substantially from the park.