
On the day it was supposed to shut down due to a run-in with D.C. police last year, Adams Morgan’s Capitol Hemp has received a reprieve of sorts—it’ll remain open for at least another six weeks.
As part of an agreement signed in April to avoid prosecution for charges of attempted sale of drug paraphernalia, Capitol Hemp co-owners Adam Eidinger and Alan Amsterdam promised to close up shop by August 1. But recently prosecutors agreed to push the store’s forced closure off until at least September 12, so that pending issues between the city and Eidinger and Amsterdam’s lawyers could be resolved.
The agreement came after a late-October raid in which D.C. police confiscated over $300,000 of water pipes and other smoking implements sold by the store. Police claimed that the pipes—more commonly referred to as bongs—broke the city’s drug paraphernalia laws, which state that the pipes and other smoking implements cannot be sold if the seller knows they’ll be used for illegal drugs. Police used other products sold by the store—including hemp goods and books on the drug war—as evidence that Eidinger and Amsterdam were breaking the law.
The store isn’t likely to survive far beyond September, though. The city’s focus on sales of drug paraphernalia have only increased in recently months—in July Mayor Vince Gray walked from store to store in Ward 8 asking owners not to sell pipes and other smoking implements.
A planned closure party will still go on tonight, though, with Capitol Hemp staying open until midnight. The store will be closed tomorrow, but will open on a regular schedule thereafter.
Martin Austermuhle