Upstate Store Raided, Drug Paraphernalia Found
Some Upstate businesses may not be aware they are selling illegal items considered to be drug paraphernalia.
Richard Pearson, Action Foods Convenience Store manager, told WYFF 4 he got an unexpected lesson in the law on Saturday.
That’s when the Anderson Police Department officers raided Action Foods.
“We had several cops come in and issued a search warrant. I was selling tobacco pipes, cigar wraps, digital scales and the Hookah tobacco pipes.”
Police Department officials would not comment on why they raided the convenience store because there is an ongoing investigation.
But once there, according to the incident report, officers found: six water pipes or bongs, 70 glass smoking pipes , 219 individually wrapped rolling papers, 16 boxes of rolling paper and 39 sets of digital scales disguised as phones and cases.
Pearson said, “They told me there was a city ordinance that you can’t sell stuff like that in the city limits. and we’d been selling that stuff for six years.”
Randall Williams, public information officer for the Anderson Police Department said “The South Carolina state ordinance lays out a foundation of what drug paraphernalia is. It’s basically anything to ingest smoke or any means of taking illegal narcotics being pipes or bongs that sort of thing or needles without prescriptions”
Williams also added that while the state doesn’t consider cigarette papers illegal, the city of Anderson has a law that does.
Pearson said 30 percent of the store’s profits came from the sale of those illegal products. Pearson added, ” I have no idea what they are doing with them. I know what they are intended for but what people do with them is their own decisions.”
And according to the incident report, Pearson is facing arrest for possession of a controlled substance. Investigators found a paper bag that contained 18 pills of the generic form of pain killer Lortab.
The report stated that Pearson admitted that he was using the pills and buying them illegally from various individuals who came into the store.
By Kisha Foster, Wyff4