GIFTing Shops in D.C. – to Bypass having a Marijuana License

NOTE: AMAZING! On the GIFT shop origin page “https://foresthillsconnection.com“ — I’m being REBUFFED multiple times from referring to this write up on the NW DC MJ GIFT shops that’s informative to locals in the area — EVEN when I reply to someone else’s comment on the article… WTF is going on with that DAMN site…?? Cannot refer to my site or plug in URL to it…

This is very rich indeed, so be prepared folks for these to pop up in more kind of quiet (for now) communities… Fuggitabout a Marijuana “MJ” license, give ‘GIFTS’ instead. “Oh wait sir, ma’am, thank you for buying that very expensive T-Shirt but do not forget about your MJ ‘GIFT’ we have for you on the counter.”

Unclear as to what is going on but there is a N.W. DC website called ‘Forest Hills Connection‘ that for some reason did not post my comment on their site, regarding their story about the GIFT shops. My comment was a very, VERY small portion of this page – nothing derogatory and no use of profanity. I wrote this piece to expand on what I was talking about. I ended up boiling down my comments on that restrictive site to the following (and hope fellow residents in the area read this piece here):

• Hmmm, interesting story about GIFT shops and marijuana… Holistic Wellness and Gifting in D.C. On the Connecticut Ave N.W. corridor. Wonder how residents feel about these venues expanding…?

The theme for ‘Gift’ shops is — Buy some non-marijuana merchandise and we will ‘gift’ you, ohhhh, some certain amount of MJ. Ahhhh, basically, it depends how much the merchandise cost, get me… Let’s go light up a doobie, ummm, after you buy some merchandise that is.

Nothing wrong with folks buying MJ, especially for health reasons and even for some folks who enjoy smoking (or chewing) MJ. But, starting an aggregation of MJ shops IN a small area is not good. There are now at least three (3) MJ shops on Connecticut Ave NW:

• ‘gopuff’ shop, 4221 Connecticut Ave NW, adjacent to Pills Plus
• ‘Mr. Green’ (GIFT shop) 4302 Conn. Ave NW, adjacent to Pot Belly
• ‘Canna Art’ (GIFT shop) 5008 Conn. Ave NW, across the street from Politics and Prose bookshop

Are we going to have any more springing up that ‘will’ attract even more unsavory characters. I am not talking about the everyday folks in our communities but the kind that will jack your car and your wallet (AND your phone AND that expensive looking watch, ring, necklace) so they can grab some kind of cash — in order to go and buy some MJ, I mean merchandise and ‘hope’ that the GIFT shop owner will be kind enough to portion out a ‘nice’ amount of MJ as well…

You will have to remember, while marijuana is now legal (in D.C., the district — not the federal system), you have to consider the places where folks intake it via smoking. There are many apartment buildings and condos and coops in D.C. — smoke travels. And while the smoker is enjoying the hell out of the MJ, the neighbors — up and down the hall, the neighbors on the multiple floors above (‘what’, you thought the MJ smoker was going to leave the windows and balcony doors closed at that time or all the time…!!!???) and sometimes on a floor or two below the smoker — depending on wind conditions. 

This becomes a nightmare for folks who do not relish the smell/odor of MJ — MJ smoke/odor slinks into many adjacent spaces via openings and cracks that you may not be aware of. And as many folks know, there are a WIDE variety of mild to VERY harsh MJ odors to contend with. The MJ smoke WILL affect the sleep AND health of many. And if the non-smoker nearby has a sensitive job and holds security clearances (or even sensitive jobs without a clearance) — there MIGHT be random drug screens. How do you go about getting by that. It will take a LOT of fighting to prove that you were not the smoker but a neighbor (or neighbors) in your building smoke MJ… In the meantime, YOU might be out of a job and will have to sue the smoker for MJ smoke harassment AND (if your were fired) the company/entity that fired you for Wrongful termination and Defamation of Character.
After talking to lawyers/city council members on this in D.C. – you/we would have to file multiple police reports for HARASSING MJ SMOKING invading your space and affecting you and your family. And ‘then’ get a lawyer to get a court to put out an order to force the smoker to switch… Because MJ is legal, that is likely the only path to getting the smokers to cease and desist smoking it and instead, switch to non-smoke related MJ products. Sure, you can go have a conversation with the smoker to ask him/her to consider switching from smoking MJ to eating MJ (gummies, cookies, powder, etc.) — but in the meantime, it is that smokers choice to light up. And for you to inhale it as a helpless bystander…

Again, nothing wrong with MJ for medical reasons or for those to relax and enjoy but, I am thinking of the criminal minded individuals who could care less about the community – the community that you/we live in. What was a better community becomes a problematic community as time goes on. Oh, it will not go downhill right off the bat, but give it time whilst not reining in the “number” and ‘density’ of MJ shops (of any kind).

As most of us well know, when drug usage grows and gets out of hand (no strict law enforcement & stern judicial system) – what happens, an area gets out of hand. Check out the “Fulton Center” in Lower Manhattan, N.Y. where crime seems to have run amok and most of the businesses have abandoned that very expensively built metro center hub… As far as business goes, it now seems to mirror what is happening in multiple spots throughout China – ghost businesses with ghost customers – that is what the Fulton Center is looking like now, due to crime… Westfield, yes, the nationwide mall owner is trying its damnedest to pull out of the N.Y. MTA lease for that location…

So, sure, allow MJ stores and GIFT shops to open up – but, PLEASE, crack down on the crimes as they happen and punish the individuals as sternly as possible to stop becoming recidivist (repeat offenders) criminals and putting a dark mark on our neighborhoods…

Dangerous Drivers in America: Loss of Decency & Our Future

Is this our future now, more and more drivers who could care less how they drive and whether it affects your driving – or your life….? And note, this is not ‘only’ happening in America….

First, it does not matter at all on multiple factors as to who the ‘dangerous driver’ is. It could be a:

• Black woman or a White woman
• Black man or White man
• or any other race out there….
• Old man or Old Woman – or young punk of any age grouping (I basically put that moniker on anyone of any age group… 😊)

So, do not get up on high horses about race and/or ethnicity and/or discrimination because this is occurring across all spectrums.

This morning, at 7.23a, Jun 5^th on Connecticut Ave NW in D.C. (something like the 8000 block of Connecticut) I was endangered out of the blue. How do I know the exact time – well, I had to take photos because of the recklessness of it all.

A MD woman, see image, in a Dodge Charger, license plate – 3dt2865 with 2023 expiration date was driving parallel to me but she was behind a slow driver. So, what did the MD driver do, she wanted to go around that car and just started merging into my lane – WHILE I WAS IN IT…

Mind you, the car in front of the MD driver was doing the speed limit, maybe 2-3 miles over the 30-mph zone.

Did I blow my car horn…? DID I BLOW MY CAR HORN – you bet your bottom $5,000 I did.

Did not matter, woman kept coming over and I did not want to have my vehicle damaged and take her to court to sue her for everything I could.

All I could do at that moment was move over – LUCKILY there was no vehicle to my right (and yes indeed, I did check first). Followed her, I did (as Yoda might phrase it…).

At the next stop light took a couple of pix of the cars’ rear. And after catching up at another stop light, albeit two lanes over and took the profile photo.

What do you do in these situations? Well, for sure you do not drive like a bat out of hell to catch up and/or try to tail gate the bad driver. Because you then become another bad driver….

Who do you call? D.C. police since it was within D.C. city limits? MD police since it was a MD driver? Which municipality?

What would either of them say? 

• Just move over out of the way….
• Let the crazy driver move on.
• But ‘you’ say, “I want to flag/record it.” They ‘might‘ say ‘okay‘ – but it is highly unlikely they will waste their precious time logging a bad driver without explicit evidence. Or severely harmed or dead human…

Here’s the thing, this is occurring more frequently, especially since the pandemic eased up and people were out and about again.  Most of this preposterous, crazy and lack of regard for normal, safe and legal driving was due to the past disgraceful, corrupt and poor choice of an American president – number 45.  And please do not tell us that president was/is not corrupt, dishonest, disgraceful. because there are mountains of evidence against him, including his business dealings since the 80s.

Here is another tidbit for ya:

Thursday morning, Jun 2^nd, a black woman in her mid-30s was tail-gating ME because I was not doing (a nominal figure here) 10 – 20 miles over the 50-mph speed limit approaching the I-295 off-ramp for S. Capitol St & Malcolm X Drive at DIA HQ, JBAB. (If you look at the plates as I do, you will see this kind of behavior occurs more with MD drivers than D.C. or VA drivers.)

She wanted ME to speed up and do 60-65 (instead of the 45 I was doing on the off-ramp) to allow HER to do that HIGHER speed, ON the curving off-ramp.

She also wanted to parallel merge into my lane to force me over so she could zip by and continue doing 60 – 65-mph.

I brought this up inside our work spaces and another team mate said that kind of driving happened to him the previous week. Team mate was in the turn right lane but the driver in the other car, she wanted to go faster, so she got into the center NON-turn lane and just flat out cut off my team mater before he could make the right turn.

MANY of us have seen THAT kind of driver, male or female.

Coming back to today, on my way home, a three-lane section of Connecticut Ave, no car in front of me or in front of the car to my right. Yet abruptly, that driver, an older white guy – he simply decided to cut in front of me and jump into the middle lane.

So, I put on my signal and moved to the right lane. The light was red, so I rolled down my window to just turn and look and him. Not say a thing, no gestures – just look…

He saw me looking yet he continued yammering away on his cell phone… yep, he was on the phone, in his right hand.

These kinds of activities are progressively creeping up the ladder and getting worse – just more bad behavior as time goes on. More egregious behaviors towards any other driver around these bad drivers. And these bad, “dangerous” drivers are getting more out of hand.  Decency…? Legality…?

What is a stop sign for those who do not give .58 cents to stop signs or red flashing lights or pedestrians or kids on bikes….?
Speed limit of 20mph in a school district. So. It does not matter to these recalcitrant drivers – they want to do 50mph and if there are any children nearby, or an elderly citizen with mobility issues steps out into the street – well, too bad.

That is what is happening in the minds of these drivers. They will continue to become worse. We are all seeing this in person or in the news. And it is definitively due to poor disregard to legality stemming from our 45^th president and whatever got into the brains of these dangerous drivers while couped up during the CoViD lockdowns… so these individuals could release their urges and say “to hell” with decency and traffic regulations…

For the rest of you out there – be careful, be extremely careful. There are more and more dangerous (looney tune) drivers out there.  Even if you do observe driving regulations/laws, you now have to step up your game and be on the lookout for those drivers who do not observe the laws or respect for others…

Another dangerous driver:

Jun 24, 2022 6.24am Beach Dr. D.C. – DC License plate GF4134

This woman was tailgating me in a 25 mph zone all along a stretch of Beach Dr. near the Zoo in NW D.C. She was trying to force me to go 10 – 15 miles over the speed limit. This is a maneuver quite a few Maryland and some DC drivers try to force other drivers to do, all day long, so the do not have to follow the speed limit on this two lane road. Especially early in the morning when they believe there are no police around to catch them. — So, at the very first stop sign, I got out to snap these pix of her.

DC Department of Transportation – poor service – road repair

Well, it seems DDOT (DC Dept of Transportation) does not care about road repair work, even if it is in an alley. This alley sees a lot of traffic. Well, see the original posts…

It started in June 2017 – no results, but at least they responded that they could not do anything about that kind of pothole… https://seeclickfix.com/issues/2980919

Then, as of this June, it started getting worse (obviously nothing was done since last June). https://seeclickfix.com/issues/4557902

This kind of pothole bends tires…

 

One of the problems is, when it rains and fills in that hole, no one can tell how deep it until their tire (the metal interior – not the rubber) makes that very noticeable impact with the pothole itself or in this case, the manhole cover that is now sticking up – more pronounced since the surrounding area has been eroded.

What they did was – was to acknowledge and close the ticket. Not even an email or explanation as to why…  Now that, that is some kind of superior customer service…

When someone sues the city for significant damages or (in an extreme case), life ending accident – they will make the effort to fix this PDQ….  right?