Elko, Nevada is a relatively small town off of I-80 in Northern Nevada. On December 29th, the Elko Chief of Police had a tough decision to make. Arrest 250 minors on their way to Utah or let them go with a warning.
The incident started when a resident notices a teenager smoking outside of a tour bus at a local pit stop/gas station. It might have even been weed. The police chief got involved when the extent of the problem became apparent. Here were five bus-loads of kids on their way to a ski weekend. They’d traveled from California and, being California kids, came with an assortment of illegal “smoke” and paraphernalia. The chief had two options. Search and detain as many as 250 kids, or give them a bit of a scare and let them go.
He chose the latter. The deal was: give up `all your pot and smoking supplies and you won’t spend your ski vacation in juvenile detention. They did, so he did.
If the kids had thought it through, they might have realized there isn’t enough space in the Elko jail to house a hundred, much less more than two hundred. But, perhaps the punishment fit the crime. Although marijuana is a serious matter here in Nevada, these were the “just passing through” tourist crowd. And now they’d have to spend their New Year without weed on the slopes.
Hat’s off to Chief Don Zumwalt. He managed to figure his way out of a difficult problem and ended up teaching some minors a valuable lesson – don’t mess with Nevada’s finest. Just don't expect to get the same break if you are caught in Elko -- unless you have a couple hundred friends with you.
No word on how the rest of the trip went for the skiers.
