"Douglas Hiatt, a local attorney *who is representing Pardew for free..."

So basically she admits that she was smoking pot in public. Can the attorneys please tell their clients to shut up and not admit anything? Good way to help the prosecution is by opening your mouth. Homeless or not.

If she couldn't smoke the joint because it was her friend's, then why was she trying to light it?

Law says don't smoke pot in public, so do like I do and don't smoke pot in public. Voila! No arrest record! We're nurturing an entore class of people who think that because of this or that, the rules don't apply to them. Sorry.

@4: Really, what's the point of even being homeless in Seattle if you have to follow the same laws as everyone else?

The real question is, why are homeless people spending their precious dollars on a product that makes them less employable?

“I ain't committing any dang crime but smoking a joint. I was really mad,”

Actually, you are. Read the next paragraph:

"...it is illegal to smoke pot in public in Seattle..."

What does them being homeless have to do with it? Nothing.

7 You forgot:

Take a dump on the sidewalk in public.
Get high on illegal drugs in public.
Be high on illegal drugs in public.
Be drunk in public.

Yeah, getting high in the middle of the day, on a weekday, when you're 50 something years old and living in a van down by the river.

Put that on your LinkedIn profile and smoke it fellas.

homeless but has enough money to buy weed.

@11 - exactly.

Hey Lester, so much for generating sympathy for the stoned homeless.

"Why Is SPD Still Ticketing Homeless People for Smoking Pot?"

Hmmm... so that those who are wealthy and powerful can acquire more wealth and power?

Shit, just look at every comment above mine. The people who run this country (and the world) have every commenter above my comment so fucking brainwashed and under their control they actually shill for them for free, and on their own time.

"Fuck the homeless! More tax cuts for billionaires!"

Fucking sad man. Fucking sad.

Don't smoke pot in public. Enforce laws equally. These are not mutually exclusive ideas.

You think that these commenters and everyone else who is tired of vagrants breaking local laws and laws of common decency, are brainwashed? Maybe we’re all just tired of working hard and following the rules and then we watch those who don’t work and freeload on our tax dollars getting away with breaking rules and laws without consequence. And then we have to read writers such as this author, try to drum up sympathy for her and others like her, who continue to flaunt their outlaw lifestyle on our dime.

@15 - I say fuckem if they break the law, homeless or billionaire

"We're nurturing an entore class of people who think that because of this or that, the rules don't apply to them." --Just Tired of It

When they* say 'justice' they mean Just US -- and they (very conveniently!) have enough money to buy all the "Justice" they'll ever need. I'm getting a little Tired of it, myself.

*the One Percenters Club
No, you are NOT innit.

@15: "Why Is SPD Still Ticketing Homeless People for Smoking Pot?"

‘Hmmm... so that those who are wealthy and powerful can acquire more wealth and power?’

Why, of course! Handing a homeless person a $27 fine for her willfully and intentionally breaking the same laws the rest of us obey is what keeps Jeff Bezos rich! Why can’t the rest of us sheeple see this obvious connection?!?

(You lose three points, though, for not including the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, or quoting CM Sawant.)

@15,
Haha! Spoken like a true conservative! That was so perfect I'm not even sure if you're being sarcastic or not.

On the chance you WERE being serious, you just regurgitated exactly what your wealthy masters want and have been driving into you your whole life. Congrats! If they actually gave a shit about you, I'm sure they'd be proud.

Go to your job. Pay your taxes. Mow your lawn. Watch TV. Consume. Obey. Don't question authority. Your enemy is the poor. Your enemy is the brown man. We've always been at war with Eastasia. Big Brother loves you.

@21,
Take a little more from the poor
Give a little more to the wealthy
Over time, you've got a chasm as wide as the Grand Canyon

But don't worry... Big Brother loves you too. Now pick up that can citizen!

Let's get this party started:

"It was a hot June day when Edith Pardew woke up in her tent near the Columbia City light rail station."

She's not homeless she has an abode.

"It was too hot to smoke a joint in her tent, so she got up and started walking down the sidewalk."

I get it tho, it's hot in my apartment during the summer. I could see how she would prefer smoking outside, most people probably do. It's illegal.

"Why are you targeting a person that appears to be homeless or just appears to be walking down the street, what’s the big deal?" Hiatt said. "Are we talking efficient allocation of resources here? That’s a big no."

Well, the "big deal" is that it's illegal. "Appears to be homeless?" Is this attorney saying they appear homeless?

It seems to be an efficient allocation of resources. Officer driving by, observes her lighting a joint, rolls up on her--tighter than her roll--and lights her up a ticket. We pay our taxes for, and give officers the power to ticket, and arrest when someone is breaking the law.

"I know it’s a narrow ruling in some respects, but I think it also stands for the basic idea that you can’t be penalized for being homeless and you can’t lose rights over being homeless. Here you don’t necessarily have a right to smoke pot, but what you have a is a problem of unequal treatment," Hiatt said.

She didn't lose a right. She broke the law. She admits to having an abode. If the officer had rolled up on her while she was smiling in her tent, then we would be taking about something different here.

"...Here you don’t necessarily have a right to smoke pot, but what you have a is a problem of unequal treatment,"

Actually, people do have a right to smoke pot, IN YOUR HOME/TENT! Unequal treatment? Please, offer some proof. You made the claim that this treatment is unequal, provide PROOF.

"A 2014 study looking at tickets issued in the first 6 months of 2014 showed that over 46 percent of tickets were issued to people that listed either homeless, transitional housing, low income housing, or post offices as their address."

This is where data gets manipulated big time during discussions like this. in order to get to that 46% number you have to add homeless, transitional housing, low income housing, and post office addresses.

What is homeless?
Been in transitional housing before. It's considered homelessness, but it's not homelessness. Low income housing is not homelessness. I have a post office address, and am not homeless. There are a lot of people with post office addresses, all kinds of people.

If you don't want a ticket for smoking weed in public, then DON'T SMOKE WEED IN PUBLIC.

@23-the fine for smoking pot is not going to the wealthy. I'll bet you the same $27 dollars that it is never paid in any case. More likely that the wealthy's taxes are being used to pay for the justice system that issues, tracks, and tries in vain to collect these fines. No one here has said we should give less to the poor, but almost everyone here IS tired of some people's lifestyles making the city a worse place for everyone to live. Not to mention that it seems to be Seattle that is having to put up with the problem on behalf of a lot of other places (or did i miss all of those junkies and panhandlers the last time i was in Bellevue?)

The 9th Circuit did say that a state or city can't criminalize the act of being homeless (i.e., if someone has nowhere else to go, you can't prosecute them for being outside/in the park/whatever - note that this applies if there are no shelter spaces available). It did NOT say that you have a right to poop/do drugs/wander around drunk/pee on the bus or all of the other things people are upset about.

It was a BAD decision Lester to use her full name and profile her in this way. She's in her 50's, but by no means too old to get back into a job or even a career. Now this touchy-feely hit piece will haunt her forever - not so much because employers think pot is bad but because they want employees who appear to want to better themselves and be productive.

It’s so easy to hate the homeless. They are to Seattleites what blacks once were to southerners or Italian immigrants to Anglo-Saxon settlers of the eastern seaboard: a self-evident inferior, a convenient whipping boy that defines “us” in opposition to “them.”

The homeless make an even easier target. It’s not about who they are, the judgers can say, it’s about what they do. It’s not that we so desperately crave an other on which to exercise our instinctive animus. No, it’s because they are lazy. They are criminals. They bring disease. They destroy the fabric of society.

The calendar reads a different year. The labels have changed. The argument remains the same. Always the same.

You know at whom I grow angry, when I see the homeless population swell? I get mad at the people who took the social contract, tore it up, and threw it away. The people who slashed public funding for mental health. They didn’t have to do any of that. Things were going so well. They did it because they wanted to. They like it this way. They like the suffering. They only feel like they’re winning when everyone else is losing.

I don’t love the homeless - I have a lifetip or two I would love to share and see them follow - but I don’t hate them. They are not evil. They are merely a little lost. And in this mean-spirited excuse of a society unleashed in the days of our cardboard cowboy president, I don’t blame them for feeling that way.

" I get mad at the people who took the social contract, tore it up, and threw it away"

Actually, I think they rolled it up and smoked it in a van down by the river.

@27:
"because they are lazy"
Some are.
"They are criminals"
Some are.
"They bring disease."
Some do.
"They destroy the fabric of society."
They don't. But the problems can.

" I get mad at the people who took the social contract, tore it up, and threw it away"

Yeah, I'll remember that one & giggle next time I pay $40,000 a year just in federal taxes like I did last year. Can I also complain that I can't walk around Seattle smoking weed on a workday and will actually get a parking ticket if I park an RV on my street?

Someday another homeless person will probably rob and kill her. The cop will give that person a $27 ticket.

I can't help but laugh at the "law and order uber alles" contingent above. The sheer hypocrisy and privilege on-display is simply stunning in its obliviousness.

I'm going out on a limb and guess you're all, to a one, adult white males. You descry this insignificant act as if it were tantamount to murder, and express outrage that people like this, who are literally harming no one, are somehow getting away with something you yourselves would never even consider doing.

Bullshit.

You-all do equally, if not far worse, illegal shit all the time, and probably on a daily basis: rolling through stop signs, running yellow lights, not using your turn signals, driving over the speed limit, jaywalking, tossing a butt out your car window, shaving a little extra off your tax liability, probably even occasionally enjoying a surreptitious cup of wine in a public park while watching some outdoor theatre or a concert, or whatnot - tiny little offenses you don't even think about while you're doing them, because your minds rest easy in the the comforting notion that your privilege virtually ensures no police officer is ever going cite you for your transgression; and even in the extremely rare instances when they might, you will have the prerogative to respond in a state of high dudgeon at the very idea of some badge "wasting my valuable time when you should be arresting REAL criminals", that is, someone doing exactly what you just got busted for doing, but who aren't white, male, 'Murkins. And yeah, most likely you'll probably just get the verbal warning and be sent on your way, so you'll think it's almost like you didn't really do anything at all; or in the worst case, you'll spend an hour down at the magistrate's office getting the infraction reduced or nullified, because, again, your privilege allows you the ability to take time off from your oh-so-vital-to-the-economy job to do so. And you'll walk out still convinced you didn't actually do anything wrong, so you can continue to deny that you're not in any way, shape, or form like some filthy, uncivilized homeless scofflaw who flagrantly flouts authority, and therefore should have the book thrown at them every time they get caught with a beer in a sack, or walking down the street with a joint hanging from their lips.

If the authorities actually DID what @16 above suggests, that is, if they were to truly "enforce the laws equally", all of you - and I include myself here - would have a record of being cited for minor infractions as long as your arms. But, you don't REALLY mean this. You just mean that people less fortunate than yourselves should bear the brunt, while you: white, male, socially and economically privileged; should always be granted the exception.

@32: A rant does not an argument make. And, for the most part, you don't know what our skin colors are, or our gender, or how much money we make. Nor can we assume that you are the spokesperson for the oppressed, poor, and homeless.

@32

I'm pretty sure most of the commenters here receive a parking ticket once in a while, and maybe even a red-light or speeding ticket. Nobody who habitually commits minor infractions like that gets away with all of them. Some of them have pretty impressive records, even. And they don't "think they've done nothing wrong," either-- they might grumble about the fines being a bit steep, but you won't hear anyone saying "that should be a legal parking space" or "I should be allowed to do 45mph in that school zone."

Similarly, people who routinely smoke marijuana while walking along a public sidewalk almost always get away with it, even if they're not members of the privileged classes.

The injustice really starts further down the road, where those traffic-camera and pot-violation citations are part of your permanent record, and an employer (or landlord or anyone else) does a criminal background check and treats the $27 weed violation as something much more serious than the $250 school-zone camera ticket.

@28, @30 - Thank you for so thoroughly illustrating my point, but it was unnecessary to provide more evidence. This thread had provided more than enough already.

Why oh why was I surprised to find slog's prissy comment section angry at the homeless person and not the pig

@38

Probably because you're the sort of person who casually throws around slurs like "pig" when they're totally unwarrented.

This cop didn't beat her up, or shoot her, or pepper spray her, or even yell at her as far as I can tell. There's nothing in anyone's account of the event to suggest there was a higher priority crime occurring anywhere nearby that the cop should have been dealing with instead.

He even gave her joint back to her after writing the ticket, for heaven's sake.

Oh, robotslave, just when i think i can’t possibly love you anymore than i do, you go and say something totally reasonable like that. Bff’s forever. Yeah, i know its redundant. Don’t care.

@23: Yeah, the $27 fine she may not even ever pay is going to Jeff Bezos. Riiiiiiiiiiight. Please do tell us the type and brand of cannabis and at which shop you bought it, because that's some truly primo hallucinogenic stuff you're smoking there.

(You still haven't mentioned the Illuminati, the Trilateral Commission, or provided any of the many quotes from CM Sawant which agree with your fantasy.)

@32: "You descry [sic] this insignificant act as if it were tantamount to murder,"

Please quote anyone here who described her action as if it was anything more than smoking cannabis in public, which is a very minor offense indeed. What we have mocked -- much to your agitated impotence, apparently -- is the idea that some horrible injustice has been perpetrated upon her by our government. She knowingly and willingly broke the law, and she received the (appropriately small) legal punishment for it. End of story.

That you have nothing but a rant based upon your wild assumptions and silly fairy stories to "support" your point merely demonstrates just how completely invalid it truly is.

"Why oh why was I surprised to find slog's prissy comment section angry at the homeless person and not the pig"

Because I'd rather have the cop as my neighbor than your pot smoking Parrot head who clearly doesn't give a shit about herself or the society paying her way.

@41,
Yeah, keep mowing your lawn. One day you'll be rich and you can tell off all those Joneses who said you'd never amount to anything. You'll be in the billionaire's club and they'll all welcome you in... eyes rolling...

Jesus Christ dude. You're a nothing and a nobody. Just like me, a nothing and a nobody. It's not a conspiracy. The wealthy really do make all the rules and everyone just plays by their rules because they want to be wealthy themselves (Hint: You'll never be one of the wealthy. Sorry. They know their own and you're not it. Neither am I. At least I know it.)

You never heard of compound interest before?
A little bit taken from the poor
A little bit given to the wealthy
It adds up fast.

Is a dollar from the poor given as a dollar to Jeff Bezos? No. But Jesus Christ don't be so fucking basic. You think Bezos ever gets a pot smoking ticket? You think a homeless pot-smoking bum ever applies for tax credits? It fucking adds up. It's every teeny-tiny benefit and every teeny-tiny penalty that gets added and added and added and added ad nauseum that keeps you in your place and keeps the powerful above you. This is not hard to see. Just look around, it's clear as day. Christ. Sorry you can't see it. Just look, it's right there.

@15 - what @17 said.

@30
Muffy, is that you?

The Stranger might be in a better place to speak on enforcement of pot laws, if they weren't taking tens of thousands of dollars a week (or more) in ad revenue from pot vendors. The optics of the paper's conflict of interest are not so good, where editorial decisions are concerned.

So when does The Stranger stop taking tens of thousands of dollars in ad revenue a week from pot shops, before stating what laws should and should not be enforced.

48 comments and no discussion of the absurdity of our pot laws? it's legal to smoke a joint, but illegal to smoke it in public. where else is a homeless person supposed to do it, you judgmental bluenoses?

@49: Anywhere where no one's looking; weed smokers are very adept at that.

@49 This person who received the ticket they earned is NOT homeless.

@49

We've got pretty much the same law for masturbation, which is even less harmful than smoking a joint.

I'd rather keep that law, thank you very much, and if this makes me an interfering prude in your own judgemental eye, so be it.

My hope is that so many homeless druggies smoke so many joints, leave so many needles, dump so much trash, and take so many shits (preferably on the front porches of every anti-homeless and anti-drug yet also anti-government and anti-tax motherfucker out there) that the government, the so-called "religious" pearl-clutchers, and the anti-government, anti-tax blowhards out there will be FORCED to actually do something instead of all the useless, feckless armchair quarterbacking, NIMBY-ing, and feel-good, bullshit posturing they do now.

Homelessness and drug use are happening whether you want to accept it or not. Deal with it you worthless cunts. Pony up the cash to deal with it or GTFO.

49/Max: "48 comments and no discussion of the absurdity of our pot laws? it's legal to smoke a joint, but illegal to smoke it in public. where else is a homeless person supposed to do it, you judgmental bluenoses?"

*

I'd prefer that it was legal to smoke pot in public..

However, I'm glad that Washington legalized pot and I see the law against smoking in public as a small price to pay for the greater good of having it be legal.

Furthermore, although I prefer that smoking pot in public be legal, I realize that my preference is not the law, that it is NOT legal and, therefore, if I smoke in public, I always make sure I'm discreet about it.

54/Urgutha Forka: "Homelessness and drug use are happening whether you want to accept it or not. Deal with it you worthless cunts. Pony up the cash to deal with it or GTFO."

*

Let's say that you're the mayor of Seattle. Let's also say that you have the power to raise whatever funds you deem necessary from the public in order to help people who are homeless. First, what are you going to do to help them? Second, through what method (or methods) would you raise the funds necessary to fund your program of assistance?

@44: “Yeah, keep mowing your lawn.”

I don’t have a lawn. I prefer my upper-story balcony view of sunset over the Sound and Olympics.

“You'll never be one of the wealthy.”

I’ve never claimed otherwise.

(Has it ever occurred to you to ask why your “arguments” always involve baseless and wrong assumptions about your interlocutors? Nope, didn’t think so.)

“Is a dollar from the poor given as a dollar to Jeff Bezos? No.”

Funny — that actually was your claim. Now you’re trying to walk it back — without admitting error, of course. Hilarious!

“The wealthy really do make all the rules and everyone just plays by their rules because they want to be wealthy themselves.”

Or because they understand this thing called a “social contract,” which you seem to despise @54.

“You never heard of compound interest before?
A little bit taken from the poor...”

Jeff Bezos is earning compound interest off someone who lives in a tent and chooses to smoke weed in public? This new learning amazes me!

@56,
Raise taxes. Massively raise taxes.

@57,
"I don’t have a lawn. I prefer my upper-story balcony view of sunset over the Sound and Olympics."
I knew it. I knew you were a fucking Vichy France sellout. Go suck Hitler's dick.

'“Is a dollar from the poor given as a dollar to Jeff Bezos? No.”'
"Funny — that actually was your claim. Now you’re trying to walk it back — without admitting error, of course. Hilarious!"

That was my claim? Go read it again you grade school dropout. My claim was general, not specific. I never claimed "Jeff Bezos gets a dollar for every dollar taken from the poor" Show me where I said that or admit that you're a liar and then go fuck yourself. Show me anything. ANYTHING I wrote that Jeff Bezos gets a dollar for every dollar taken from the poor, as you claim. Oh, you can't? Fuck off liar.

Now go mow your lawn you tool. It needs to be short enough for you to kneel before your master's cock to suck it clean.

Christ you are a fucking loser. Is this what public ed teaches?? Go get your fucking shine box.

@58 - I share your disappointment with @57. I have had a lot of experience with tensorbot, and I have been concerned that arguing with it might train its algorithms until it eventually reaches self-awareness (and passable logic); but the more shit we throw at it, the runnier and gassier the shit it throws back. This is clearly not the best that Russian AI has to offer. They owe us a 2.0 instead of a half-baked beta.

@57 - “interlocutors?” Still learning vocabulary from your smarter, nimbler role model, I see. Good, good...

What I really want to see, though, is a quote and a link (oh, goodie goodie happy day - your two favorite things in the whole wide world, right after dreams of catching a homeless bike thief) to a comment where you agreed with a woman or person of color.

Actually, let’s lower the bar a bit. Let’s go out of our way to be sensitive to your special needs. Did you support, perhaps, the $15 minimum wage in Seattle? Can you provide a quote where you were for something, anything minimally humane? Even if it only benefitted white males, like maybe a transit project to connect an incel neighborhood to their jobs at Boeing?

Baby steps. Have to walk before we run. Have to crawl before we walk.

I’m trying to help you - your credibility would benefit from showing you aren’t just a one-sided broken record.

Nice job publishing a picture and her name.

Unless she becomes a Stranger employee, her potential career prospects are now somewhat diminished.

So that's one person we won't be able to rehabilitate get a $15/ hour job and rent that low income apartment. Hey we saved money!

If you want to smoke go for it but I hate the smell of cigarettes or pot, prefer not to have to be stinking up my space. I like that there is a rule about this even though the fines are too low.

@58: Of course you didn’t give any specific examples to support your cliched mutterings about how the rich steal from the poor, let alone connect anything you’ve written here to Edith Pardew. I was mocking your abject failure to accomplish anything of either kind. (Hint: Monty Python reference.)

“I knew it.”

Backdating your ignorance doesn’t actually turn it into prescience. Just sayin’.

In 242 years we've gone from "I regret I have but one life to give for my country" to “Just sayin’.”

Geez, tensor, what happened to you? I’ve been reviewing your work circa 2015. You used to be relatively relaxed. Then you mansplained porn to lavagirl, and ever since, you — a self-described urban liberal — have come across as a homeless-hating, rapist-defending, condescending asshole who loves to hate “CM Sawant” and Charles Mudede. You used to hate the NIMBY’s - now you sheug your shoulders and argue we shouldn’t take them on at all.

If that’s not consistent with who you are and your values, you really need to change the way you comment.

@64

This is why I love you, you poor thing.

For normal people, it's pretty hilarious to be reminded that there's someone out there who thinks blogs-comments are supposed to be written like five-paragraph middle-school essays.

@59, no, but that is a very good guess!
@60, wut?
@64, You want research links? No problem:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

@66 - You provide a quote and a link and end with the taunt of a petulant 12-year old and you are automatically right. That’s how it works.

Just sayin’.

I actually think he’s a decent person. He has just gotten addicted to disagreement.

I'm pretty sure "the homeless" would dearly love to do all these things IN PRIVATE, IN THEIR OWN HOMES: poop, eat, smoke, have sex, read a book, pet the dog. BUT THEY DON'T HAVE HOMES. People who have "privacy" because THEY HAVE A HOME forget that life goes on regardless of whether you are blessed with a home. I vape in public all the time because no one smells it so I am invisible and safe from police harassment. Too bad the homeless can't afford expensive equipment to use their pot. Just another way they are screwed. Judge not lest you be judged.

@71 - Yeah, I saw the CEO of Real Change the other day in his Tesla driving down 5th Ave in insane mode. Hit a wage-earning homeowner pedestrian in a crosswalk. Pedestrian’s head is impaled through his windshield, and he is screaming in pain, blood dripping down his face from gashes where the glass has carved a circle around his skull. Real Change guy kicks the guy’s face, Pineapple Express-style, until he slumps down the hood. Driver gets out and as he drags his limp body to the curb, he yells (and I quote): “Stop slowing me down, you privileged uncaring asshole!! I am on my way to help the less fortunate!!!”

Their arrogance knows no bounds, these homeless advocates. Gravy train needs to pull into the station for good.