Weedstock ends on a mellow note

Weedstock concluded with plenty of smoke but no fire.

No one was seriously injured, no violent crimes were reported and the Whitman County Sheriff’s Office cited or arrested 10 people for relatively minor infractions on the roads near the three-day, marijuana-related music event north of Pullman. Sheriff Brett Myers said the arrests or citations included four driving with suspended license, three people with active warrants, one drug possession call, one minor in possession call and one alcohol-related DUI.

No neighboring properties off of Hamilton Hill Road near the event were reported damaged, and no issues arose at the venue itself.

Many of the first-time festival’s neighbors did not want the event to happen, but Meyers said patrons caused no problems.

“For the most part, it was not that big of a deal,” he said.

Meyers said he didn’t “beef up patrols” in the area but did have deputies check in on the roads near the event throughout the weekend.

Landowner Penny Gilchrist, who didn’t want the festival on her land in the first place but relented, said there was hardly a “speck of litter” leftover.

“They were all pleasant,” she said. “Well, I didn’t talk to everybody, but the ones I did talk to were all having a good time. I never saw one person smoke whatever they were smoking, and if they if did it, they did it in the tents.”

But the mellow event gave Gilchrist plenty of online grief beforehand. She said she received a number of hateful comments on Facebook or saw rumors of her profiting lavishly from the event.

“We took no money; no one got paid,” she said. “It’s over with and no harm was done, nobody was hurt. … I don’t know what the big hoopla was about.”

The event drew people from across the country but rarely drew a crowd in excess of 400 people at any one time over the three days.

“The food was fabulous,” Gilchrist said. “We have no complaints, but I doubt we’ll ever do it again.”