We hope local residents go to the Ocean City Tabernacle at 9:30 a.m. Saturday for a Town Hall meeting organized by Mayor Jay Gillian and Police Chief Jay Prettyman. We believe it will help everyone understand that life is going to be different on this resort island this summer.
As we cover in a lengthy article in this week’s Sentinel, (RELATED STORY) the legalization of marijuana combined with juvenile justice reform seriously changes what police can and cannot do, especially with people under the age of 21 suspected of using or possessing marijuana or alcohol. This is going to be a wake-up call for the community used to reporting the smell of marijuana to police, complaining about people drinking or smoking marijuana on the beach, or upset about an underage drinking party taking place in the house next door.
Prettyman said residents and visitors are going to have to get used to the smell of marijuana. It’s going to be similar to cigarette smoke in that even if it is reported, or police have it waft right in front of them, there is little officers are going to do. Correct that: there is little officers are legally allowed to do.
New Jersey voters overwhelmingly supported the legalization of possession and use of marijuana in a ballot question last November. We supported some of the reforms that came with it given some of the disparities of how marijuana laws were enforced.
However, we have been baffled by some of the juvenile justice reforms. We know the intent behind them was meant to keep young people out of the justice system, a laudable goal, but it seems the reforms go so far as to make underage drinking and drug use permissible.
The public is going to be surprised to learn that police are not going to intervene just because they are called about the smell of marijuana smoke. The police had to deal with that on the beach last summer and it is going to get worse this summer now that it has been legalized. As long as people hide it when police arrive, which takes about two seconds to shove something under the sand, cops are going to be powerless to do anything other than give them a citation for violating the city’s smoking ordinances – at best.
Police aren’t allowed to ask anyone under the age of 21 for consent to search them even if they see them possessing marijuana, hashish or alcohol. As Prettyman explains in the article, if a cop sees a young person smoking a joint, and that person puts the joint into his or her pocket, the cop cannot search them.
There are now a series of warnings that must be given to minors while asking them to identify themselves and provide their parents’ or guardians’ names so they can be informed of the warning. However, young people have the option of refusing to cooperate, something Prettyman believes is going to be the norm. In that case, they won’t even have to give police their names and police will just have to let them go. As the chief said, for the warnings to have any effect, the law would have required young people to at least identify themselves and their parents.
The one advantage Ocean City may have this summer is the fact that as the state works out the details in the new marijuana laws, there isn’t a legal way to purchase marijuana or hashish, which are still illegal under federal law. Since dispensaries aren’t going to open until the end of summer or early fall, the resort should have a little bit of a reprieve.
Prettyman also points out that with so many of the tourists coming to Ocean City from other parts of New Jersey, it isn’t as if they’ll discover this is a special place to light up.
The police chief wants Saturday’s session to function more as a time for questions and answers, for residents to ask about different scenarios – such as what to do about an underage drinking party next door.
We encourage local residents to load up on questions and show up Saturday morning. And to try not to be surprised by the answers.