It was close to a year ago that police raided Capitol Hemp, confiscating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of merchandise from the three-year-old Adams Morgan store and arresting its two owners on accusations that they were peddling drug paraphernalia.

But it’s only today that the store is closing its doors, leaving owners Adam Eidinger and Alan Amsterdam frustrated with what they say was a trumped up case that hinged on when a water pipe becomes a bong.

When the raids happened—two other Adams Morgan stores that sold water pipes were also targeted—police claimed that Eidinger and Amsterdam were violating the city’s prohibition on the sale of drug paraphernalia. The law is vague on that point; a permissible water pipe only becomes an illegal bong when police can prove that the seller knows that the buyer will be using it consume an illegal drug. (Recently, Mayor Vince Gray toured stores in Ward 8, asking them to refrain from selling pipes and rolling papers.)

In an affidavit justifying the raid, D.C. police claimed that the other products Capitol Hemp sold, including hemp clothing, books on the drug war and a DVD listing the rights a citizen has when arrested, proved that Eidinger and Amsterdam knew they were selling the water pipes for marijuana use. The two claimed otherwise, pointing out that even an undercover police that referenced the use of marijuana while in the store was told that the pipes were used for tobacco—which the store also sold.

Ultimately, prosecutors promised Eidinger and Amsterdam that they would dismiss the charges—misdemeanor counts of attempted sale of drug paraphernalia—and return confiscated cash and merchandise if the two consented to shuttering the two stores. In April, they agreed. A Chinatown location that had also been raided by police closed first, but an August closing for the Adams Morgan store was delayed over complaints that police had not returned confiscated merchandise.

Today’s closing is real, though. And while Eidinger’s charges were dismissed in August, Amsterdam’s won’t be lifted until prosecutors and a judge are content that Capitol Hemp’s doors really are closed.

But while the physical space will no longer be open tomorrow, Eidinger said that they will keep selling some of their products—hemp clothing and the such—through an online store. He also said that they were invited to set up a stand at a Thievery Corporation music festival on September 15, and that Amsterdam was considering options in the suburbs for another store.

Though Eidinger said he was “resigned” to the store’s fate, he also displayed some of the same righteous indignation that has defined his activist persona in D.C. for years. “We weren’t treated fairly,” said Eidinger over the phone this afternoon. “There should have been some warning as to what was legal and what wasn’t.”

Ticking off the people he held partially responsible for the raid and prosecution—including Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) and neighboring businesses that didn’t stand up for the store—Eidinger still sticks to his guns that Capitol Hemp was in the right.

“We’re always going to remember it as a take down. We don’t see what we did as wrong,” he said.