Madison NORML

While the unrelated shooting at the store Stingl refers to is very tragic, is it a good use of law enforcement resources in a city beset by so much violence to target over the counter cannabis sales? Should hard-working Milwaukeeans who want to relax after work or medical patients have to buy their pot from gangsters on the street?

From the sound of it, the availability of small amounts of cannabis at the One Stop did not lead to the complete collapse of society in Milwaukee. If these allegations are true, they were actually doing the public a service by providing safe access to cannabis in standardized packaging. The former patrons of the One Stop are now back to scoring pot of uncertain quality and weight from street drug dealers who may also selling crack cocaine and other drugs. Is this a good outcome? It's not too late to learn from the lesson of alcohol prohibition.

Men's Fitness magazine click here recently dubbed Milwaukee "The City That Drinks the Most," noting, "The highest number of bars per capita of any city in our survey, combined with statewide alcohol consumption of almost three gallons per person per year, earn ol' Milwaukee bragging rights as the nation's watering hole."

In a city known for excessive alcohol consumption and beset with violent crime, adult cannabis use should be seen for what it is, harm reduction. In a more sensible world, the One Stop would still be dispensing OTC cannabis.

TRAGEDY DIDN'T WAKE UP TROUBLED STORE OWNER

Published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Jan. 20, 2006.
Author: Jim Stingl

The shop that neighbors call "the blue store" has seen more than its share of heartbreak and trouble. A shrine to a dead 15-year-old boy right inside the front door is evidence of that.

Its real name, Hopkins One Stop, bears a darkly humorous irony now. You get your bread, your milk, your marijuana, all at one convenient location.

Vice squad police raided the store at 4703 N. Hopkins St. this week and arrested owner Aubrey Hubanks and a clerk. And the city now is in a full-court press to declare the place a nuisance.

People have been complaining to the cops about the store. "They said there was drug-dealing over the meat counter," Lt. Robert Stelter said. An undercover officer bought pot at the store and it was indeed over the meat counter, he said.

Other marijuana, packaged in small plastic bags for quick sale, was seized from the store and an apartment upstairs.

Trouble has returned.

This is the same store where last March, Hubanks' two sons got hold of a .45-caliber handgun kept behind the counter. While trying to unload the gun, the 13-year-old son shot his 15-year-old brother, Aubrey Jr., in the neck. The boy died.

"We miss you now, our hearts are sore," says a poem that hangs on a piece of cardboard here alongside photos of the smiling boy.

The gun wasn't supposed to be there because the boys' father is a convicted felon in a 1983 armed burglary case. Neither were the 56 bags of marijuana priced at $10 to $20 each, all tucked into a cigar box behind the counter, according to a criminal complaint.

In the midst of his grief over the loss of a son, Aubrey Hubanks was charged with two felonies. That case is still winding through the courts.

You'd think this would have been a huge wake-up call for him. This week's drug raid suggests otherwise. Even the city garbage can on the sidewalk outside seems to mock him with its stenciled message that "Drugs are trash."

I tried without success to interview Hubanks or his wife. I can tell you that when he was busted the first time, he told police he sells pot to pay medical bills. He wasn't peddling cocaine and so he did not consider himself a drug dealer, the criminal complaint says.

That's something, I suppose, but it's a felony either way. And selling out of your business - man, that's risky.

As I said, this time the city and the police have teamed up to hammer the blue store as a nuisance. Five television news photographers crowded in as a city inspector slapped a notice on the building this week, calling it "unfit for human habitation." Photos purporting to show rotten food, bad wiring and other code violations were handed out to reporters.

A criminal complaint is expected to be signed today charging Hubanks with felony bail jumping and drug possession. The clerk faces a drug-dealing charge; he's accused of selling the pot to the officer.

Hubanks' lawyer, Bridget Boyle, said the boy's death was "the saddest thing ever," but she cautioned me about blaming it on drug activity at the store. Many shop owners and tavern-keepers in the city keep a gun for protection, she said.

The younger brother was charged as a juvenile, but the case was dropped, to be handled informally by the probation department. The real punishment for his act is the agony that began the instant the gun went off.

"I hope the father learns a lesson from this," Children's Court Judge Mary Triggiano said as she dismissed charges against the boy in May.

Hubanks was in the courtroom when she said it. Right now, he's sitting in jail, probably wishing the lesson had sunk in a little better.