Right, I was just about to write this correction. The « East Village » is a fairly recent name given to the area east of Third Avenue. I believe the connotation began after the Third Avenue El was taken down in 1950s or 60s (?). Greenwich Village, centered around Washington Square and extending west to the Hudson is much older and dates to at least the early 19th century, perhaps earlier. It is an officially designated Historic District.
Like many liberals I was strongly in favor of legalizing weed but now I have changed my mind. People are driving around high as hell and it's obvious that there has been an upsurge in young people who are stoned all day every day and are very obviously rendering themsleves permanently stupified. This business of driving while smoking is especially depressing cause it's obviously a massive trend and I wonder how in the hell the police are going to contend with it.
I'm not too worried about making sure a cohort of illegal sellers are treated equally with respect to enforcement. A person illegally selling weed gets padlocked, but the illegal store down the street doesn't - I feel no sympathy for the seller who got padlocked. I would prefer a wider crackdown - but if you're selling illegally, you have no real claim to the laws being enforced fairly. And this is not like the previous war on drugs - no one is going to jail for illegal weed selling in NYC, they just get their shop shut down.
I appreciate the argument that enforcement was perhaps too sudden and too arbitrary, and maybe it was, but people knew that what they were doing was illegal and that they were taking a calculated risk. In my vicinity in the Upper West Side it was literally easier to buy weed than buy milk with all the illegal shops around, and all the competition was making contraband even more affordable for kids, indigents, etc. The crackdown could have been handled better but I'm not terribly heartbroken that it happened.
Washington Square Park is not in the East Village, it is the heart of Greenwich Village proper.
Otherwise, good article. The whole episode has been a master class in woke stupidity and incompetence.
Right, I was just about to write this correction. The « East Village » is a fairly recent name given to the area east of Third Avenue. I believe the connotation began after the Third Avenue El was taken down in 1950s or 60s (?). Greenwich Village, centered around Washington Square and extending west to the Hudson is much older and dates to at least the early 19th century, perhaps earlier. It is an officially designated Historic District.
Like many liberals I was strongly in favor of legalizing weed but now I have changed my mind. People are driving around high as hell and it's obvious that there has been an upsurge in young people who are stoned all day every day and are very obviously rendering themsleves permanently stupified. This business of driving while smoking is especially depressing cause it's obviously a massive trend and I wonder how in the hell the police are going to contend with it.
I'm not too worried about making sure a cohort of illegal sellers are treated equally with respect to enforcement. A person illegally selling weed gets padlocked, but the illegal store down the street doesn't - I feel no sympathy for the seller who got padlocked. I would prefer a wider crackdown - but if you're selling illegally, you have no real claim to the laws being enforced fairly. And this is not like the previous war on drugs - no one is going to jail for illegal weed selling in NYC, they just get their shop shut down.
I appreciate the argument that enforcement was perhaps too sudden and too arbitrary, and maybe it was, but people knew that what they were doing was illegal and that they were taking a calculated risk. In my vicinity in the Upper West Side it was literally easier to buy weed than buy milk with all the illegal shops around, and all the competition was making contraband even more affordable for kids, indigents, etc. The crackdown could have been handled better but I'm not terribly heartbroken that it happened.