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CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- from www.sundaygazettemail.com - The owner of a Jefferson novelty store was ordered last week to permanently stop selling certain merchandise in Kanawha County, but he won't face drug charges for having stocked and sold synthetic marijuana.
During a raid in May, West Virginia State Police troopers found that Kenneth Holliday stocked about $100,000 worth of synthetic marijuana, also known as "K2," in his Secret Pleasures shop at 6912 MacCorkle Ave. S.W.
On Thursday, after police lab technicians confirmed that the product contained chemicals banned for sale in West Virginia, Kanawha County Circuit Judge Duke Bloom permanently barred Holliday from selling any of the merchandise he previously sold in the store, including adult toys, drug paraphernalia and pornographic videos.
By selling the illegal K2 drug, Holliday had violated the terms of a legal agreement he reached with the Kanawha County Planning Commission last August.
County assistant prosecutor Fred Giggenbach told Bloom the state agreed not to charge Holliday with possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. The out-of-state companies that supplied the products apparently assured Holliday that synthetic marijuana, often marketed as incense, was legal in West Virginia. State legislation to ban the sale of synthetic drugs went into effect in mid-April.
The companies had attached stickers to the packages of the drugs, claiming that the "incense" did not contain banned chemicals.
"People don't go to Secret Pleasures and purchase K2 over and over to burn incense in their house," Giggenbach said later. "You'd have to be brain dead to not know that people were trying to get high off of this K2 stuff."
Prosecutors, however, would have had difficulty proving that Holliday had intended to sell an illegal substance, Giggenbach said.
Holliday owns two other novelty shops, one in Huntington and one in Princeton, which operate under similar names. His lawyer, Jesse Forbes, said Holliday also had stocked K2 in those stores, but has since removed the items from the shelves.
"Since he became aware that these items were possibly illegal, he's taken every step to remove them from his West Virginia stores," Forbes said, adding that Holliday has investments in other states.
Holliday first announced plans to open Secret Pleasures in Jefferson last summer, which drew the ire of the Planning Commission. A county ordinance prevents business owners from opening "adults only" stores within 2,000 feet of any school, park, residence, library or government building. Two schools and a church lie within that distance to Secret Pleasures.
Planning commissioners allowed Holliday to open the store after the owner agreed in a restraining order that no more than 30 percent of his stock would be adult merchandise and that passersby would not be able to see that merchandise through the store window.
The order also outlined that Holliday would be held in contempt if he was found to have sold any illegal items in the shop.
During the police raid a month later, people were still walking up to the store and asking to purchase the synthetic drug, despite the numerous squad cars outside the building, Giggenbach said.
"That should give you an indication of how badly people want the stuff," he said.
Holliday's store is under a long-term lease. He may reopen another business at the same location, but the order Bloom issued Thursday prevents him from selling any of the same merchandise he previously sold in the store.
Forbes said he does not know whether Holliday will open a different type of business on the MacCorkle Avenue lot.
