The court rules on Spice selling store.
Manchester’s crackdown on stores that sell Spice, a marijuana alternative known as K 2, got more interesting yesterday after Hillsborough County Superior Court Judge Diane Nicolosi ordered the reinstatement of T N Gas and Convenience‘s revoked business license. T N was one of three convenience stores whose license was pulled after three dozen people overdosed on the mind altering potpourri laced with chemicals to simulate the high produced by smoking dope. Union Street Market at six twenty one Union Street and Han’s Food Market at three fifty three Maple Street also had their licenses revoked after multiple overdose victims said they got the drugs they o d’d on at those stores.
Levasseur: Actually won one.
The injunction leading to the reinstatement of the license was filed by sometimes Alderman sometimes Attorney Joe Kelly Levasseur who argued that the city did not have credible evidence warranting a shut down of his client, T N Gas and Convenience and that it violated their due process rights under the ordinance by failing to provide the owners notice prior to revocation. Despite the rash of overdoses in a short period of time, the judge agreed, noting that the offending brand of Spice was not found on the premises of the store and preventing then from selling other items served no purpose to protect public health or safety, especially in light of the State of Emergency declared by Governor Margaret Wood Hassan and the subsequent order that Spice be removed from store shelves. She also faulted the city for its apparent inability to hold an appeals hearing until today, wondering why a quorum of the Committee on Administration, couldn’t be convened before the court’s hearing yesterday and noting that there is no guarantee that the scheduled meeting will have a quorum today. Assuming the Committee on Administration meets as scheduled today, T N Gas could still have its business license revoked. Appeals for all three affected businesses are scheduled to be heard at three o’clock today in the Aldermanic Chambers at City Hall. It remains to be seen whether or not Levasseur will represent his clients before the committee, resurrecting conflict of interest issues. Expect to hear more about this during this morning’s show.
News from our own backyard continues after this.
Havenstein: Flip-flopper?
G O P gubernatorial candidate Walt Havenstein is coming under fire for comments he made during a Sunday interview on W M U R T V, an interview his campaign quoted in a news release later Sunday morning. Havenstein, who signed a pledge from Americans For Prosperity to, among other things, oppose the expansion of Medicaid, said in the interview, as quoted by his own campaign, that now that the state has expanded Medicaid it needs to quote “find a way to make it sustainable for the long term.” He said he’d use his “business experience” to quote “modify the benefit so that we help the most needy in our state and avoid a fiscal cliff” end quote, after condemning Governor Margaret Wood Hassan for creating a program that would force the state to take people’s health care away or impose a sales or income tax to pay for it; the same plan he praised Senate Republicans for passing because it avoided an even worse plan. If you’re confused, don’t worry, it confused us too. We’ve posted Havenstein’s release and note that his campaign has yet to answer our request for clarification as to whether or not we correctly understood that he was in favor of keeping a modified expansion of Medicaid over repealing it.
Hemingway: Will the “real Havenstein” stand up?
Primary rival Andrew Hemingway referred to Havenstein’s Sunday statement as another in a quote “long line of John Kerry-like moments,” accusing Havenstein of similarly confusing policy pronouncements on casino gambling, Northern Pass and Common Core. Said Hemingway, quote “is there any way to know where Walt Havenstein would stand on any issue as Governor, when he has changed his mind on them so many times in his two months in this race?” End quote. Hemingway’s statement reminded people that Havenstein referred to “The Pledge,” the one against a sales and income tax, as quote unquote “puffery” in response to reporter questions after announcing his candidacy and took the opportunity to hammer him on that again saying quote “Walt clearly believes in his original statement that these pledges are ‘puffery’ but, rather than sign them when you don’t mean it, just don’t sign it in the first place. It’s bad enough when a person’s word means nothing, but when one’s signature doesn’t even count, (it’s) time to look elsewhere for a leader you can trust.” End quote.
Smith: Backs bill banning amnesty
Former Senator Bob Smith, who is busy about the business of trying to regain the seat he once held, released a statement yesterday regarding the efforts of Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions to halt President Obama’s promised action to implement amnesty via executive action. Sessions is fighting to bring legislation passed by the House of Representatives to the Senate Floor for a vote. If adopted, the bill would defund the so called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Amnesty that’s been granted by the administration to the staggering number of unaccompanied children who’ve flooded across our southern border in recent months. He said if Sessions succeeds in bringing the bill to a vote and it passes, it would quote “stifle the President’s ability to abandon the rule of law and reshape our country’s immigration policy without the consent of the American People by way of their representatives in Congress” end quote and otherwise derail Obama’s efforts to expand amnesty for those who have come to our country illegally. Smith called on rivals Scott Brown, who had a Town Hall meeting on immigration yesterday in Derry with Arizona Senator John McCain, a man famously known to support comprehensive immigration reform, and Jim Rubens to join him in calling on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the bill to a vote.
That’s news from our own backyard, Girard at Large hour ___ is on the way.
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