Click here to subscribe today or Login.
‘Stopgap measure’ approved in Lackawanna County Court Wednesday morning against six city businesses
SCRANTON – Three Lackawanna County judges approved an injunction against six city businesses banning the sale of synthetic drugs disguised as bath salts on Wednesday morning.
The court order comes after weeks of incidents surrounding the synthetic drugs and a day after Scranton City Council first announced a future ordinance intended to ban the sale and possession of the product.
Lackawanna County District Attorney Andy Jarbola, the plaintiff in the order, called the injunction a “stopgap measure” until proposed statutes move through the Pennsylvania legislature.
“This is the first step in a process in which we want to prevent these products from being sold not only in the city, but throughout Lackawanna County as well,” Jarbola said.
The injunction calls for the immediate end to the sale of products containing the compounds of Methylene, Mephedrone and Methylenedioxyprovalerone, or MDPV, commonly found in bath salts. It directs the defendants to pay separate civil penalties of $1,000 for “each instance of a willful violation of the Order Enjoining their conduct.”
Wednesday’s complaint says that so-called bath salts are an “emerging menace” that commonly cause hallucinations, paranoia, suicidal thoughts, seizures, irritability and more.
The Scranton Police Department attempted to deliver the court orders to businesses Wednesday afternoon, according to Chief Dan Duffy. That detail continued past 3 p.m., and reports on the receipt of the orders were not expected before Thursday.
Jarbola said those businesses and their respective owners could face criminal charges should they choose to ignore the injunction.
The threat to public welfare through the sale of such products makes it a public nuisance and could also bring second-degree misdemeanor charges for reckless endangerment, according to court documents. Disguising the products as household items also violates the Pennsylvania Unfair Practices and Consumer Protection Law.
Lackawanna County President Judge Tom Munley and Judges Michael Barrasse and Margaret Bisignani Moyle granted the preliminary injunction after hearing arguments in court at 9 a.m. Wednesday.
Atty. Todd O’Malley, who has worked closely with the district attorney’s office to craft the injunction and represented Jarbola in the order, lauded the court’s decision.
“I don’t think there’s another county court in the United States of America that has banned bath salts,” O’Malley said. “It makes me very proud that this court saw the wisdom because it was very clear through the affidavits that we presented them that one of our young people in this community is going to die as a result of using these very, very dangerous substances or cause the death of someone else.
“It’s the first time, I think, in the history of the county where the district attorney has reached out to a civil trial lawyer in a situation that will help make the county a little bit safer,” he added.
Jarbola said he intended to deliver copies of the order to each of the county’s chiefs of police at a meeting Thursday, March 31.
“I’m going to ask them to go out into their communities and put the vendors on notice throughout Lackawanna County that if they don’t take these products off the market, this is what could happen,” he said.
Some Scranton vendors recently told members of the district attorney’s office they intended to sell the remainder of their stock before removing synthetic marijuana and methamphetamine sold as incense and bath salts from their shelves.
“That’s not good enough in my book. If they’re going to plan on continuing to sell the product after the injunction was entered, there are going to be ramifications,” Jarbola said.
City police have dealt with a variety of bath salts-related incidents, including the March 9 attack on a Roman Catholic priest inside St. Ann’s Monastery.
“It’s a win for us in law enforcement, because the less people that sell it, the less likely we’re going to have people under the influence of it within our jurisdiction,” Duffy said.
“Our hands are still tied on a law enforcement end to go out and enforce something. However, some help is better than no help at all.”
Defendants named
Exhibits highlight concerns, cases
The March 30 complaint lists six defendants, each tied to businesses identified as retailers of so-called bath salts in the city of Scranton. They are:
• Katherine Lachance: Jay Bee’s Kingdom, 333 S. Main Ave.
• Vicky Patel: Pantry Quik Convenience Store, 2127 Washburn St.
• Ruzu Patel: Gunsmoke Convenient Store, 1401 N. Main Ave.
• Rajiv Chavhan: Jamaica Junction, 1201 Mulberry St.
• Herry Patel, Smokes ‘R Us, 1114 S. Washington Ave.
• Mayank Patel, Convenient Food Mart, 1801 Pittston Ave.
In included exhibits, Dr. William Dempsey of Community Medial Center states that patients under the influence of bath salts are often unreceptive to normal sedatives such as Valium, even in higher doses. Patients are often placed on ventilators to help stabilize them.
Scranton Police Chief Dan Duffy wrote in another exhibit that “I have great fear that irreparable harm will be caused to either one of the users of the ‘bath salts,’ a member of my local police department who responds to the call, or even a member of the general public.”
The final two exhibits, taken from the Web sites of Go Lackawanna and The Times Leader, describe the March 9 incident where a Roman Catholic priest was allegedly attacked by a Scranton man high on bath salts and a March 19 incident where police say a West Pittston couple used knives to stab “the 90 people living inside the walls” of their apartment.