| April 2, 1982 |
[Mar. 12th, 2007|08:49 am] |
From the Ann Arbor News of Friday, April 2, 1982--pages A1 to A2:
AFTER 10 YEARS, HASH BASH MAY BE A HAS-BEEN
By Jeff Mortimer
News Staff Reporter
What if they gave a Hash Bash and nobody came?
At the rate things are going, we may find out next year.
If we haven't already that is. "I think it's pretty well dead," said Capt. Kenneth Klinge of the Ann Arbor Police Department, as he surveyed a desultory gathering of about 400 celebrants, curiosity-seekers and (mostly) University of Michigan students whiling away their lunch hours on the Diag Thursday afternoon.
"We've had a lot of students drop by and say 'It looks like the end. We hope it's the end.'" Klinge said. It may also be an idea whose time has gone, a dinosaur, a concept that went from outrageous to quaint without ever quite passing through respectability.
Capt. Klinge reported 48 "police actions," a drop of 40 percent from last year's 78. Fourteen marijuana citations were issued.
Police Chief William J. Corbett issued a statement late this morning, saying "We have witnessed the demise of the April Fool's Day event known as Hash Bash." He said U-M students and local youth have shown "their obvious disapproval" by not participating.
Corbett called the 48 code violators "malcontents and never-do-wells," most of whom were not from Ann Arbor. He said one person arrested was from Gillette, Wyo. "Last year, we had a man from Reno, Nev."
At noon, the scene included a handful of tentative-looking kids who appeared to be of high school age, some frisbeeists forlornly flinging their toys, one male guitarist playing to an admiring audience of one female, the usual mid-day leafletting and two self-styled preachers working different areas of the gathering.
"God's not like that," the one standing on one of the concrete benches that surround the central square was saying. "He's your friend."
His colleague, or competitor, dressed in a brown, three-piece, pin-striped suit and clutching a wad of periodicals he was hawking, paraded in a small circle around the bronze "M" donated by the class of 1953, haranguing all sinners within earshot.
But the sinners didn't warm to him until Shaky Jake, a more durable institution than the Hash Bash, plunged into the circle with him to provide musical accompaniment.
"Keep preachin', Jake," one of the onlookers yelled.
There were far more gawkers than tokers. There was much more bash than hash, or even its cousin, marijuana. Unlke the peak years of the late 1970s, when a haze of sweet smoke was almost palpable, there was scarcely a whiff of cannabis in the air.
The loudest "boom box" of all was playing Beatles' music, for heaven's sake, and it wasn't "Revolution Number Nine" or "Give Peace a Chance," but "She Loves You" and "I'm Happy Just To Dance With You."
"I don't think anybody gives a darn any more," said one of the 10 or so policemen eyeballing the occasion. "All I'm getting is sore feet. There's almost as many of us as there is of them."
By 1 p.m., that was almost true, as the crowd had dwindled to about 150.
'Twas not ever thus. The first Hash Bash, in 1972, was held the day a new state law went into effect, changing possession of marijuana from a felony to a misdemeanor. The intent was to solemnize the occasion in an appropriate fashion, and a crowd estimated between 150 and 300 showed up.
The 1973 Bash was perhaps the most notorious, featuring, as it did, State Rep. Perry Bullard's participation in the festivities. About 2,000 people who were not state legislators were also on hand.
The crowds, and the problems with vandalism, drunkenness and general disorder, swelled in the mid-70s. By 1976, the late Frederick Davids, then the University of Michigan's safety director, was calling it "a curse that's been visited on this city," after a crowd of 3,000 left smashed windows, a broken glass door at the Angell Hall "fishbowl" and three truckloads of trash in their wake.
Attendance in 1978 was estimated as high as 6,000, but then the numbers began to decline: 3,000 in 1979; 1,200 in 1980, and about 500 last year.
The 1974 renewal was overshadowed by city elections that day in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, elections in which voters in both cities approved a $5 fine for possession of marijuana. Perhaps the decline started then: if you can smoke dope with near impunity anywhere you like, why shiver on the Diag to do it?
The guy standing on the concrete bench droned on. "Hey, you say to yourself, one of these days, I'm going to get it together and think about reality."
Besides the 14 arrests on marijuana possession charges, other violations cited by police included: 10 for keeping dogs at large, 10 for keeping open intoxicants in a vehicle, five for violation of the city knife ordinance, three minors possessing alcoholic beverage, one consuming alcohol in public, one possession of a firework, one possession of controlled substance other than marijuana, one possession of a stolen license plate, one fugitive and one for posting a handbill.
Minors aged 17 or under were detained until their parents or guardians picked them up. |
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