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Last Wednesday, WW examined the improbable holiday phenomenon of Shroom House, a West Burnside storefront selling psychedelic mushrooms at retail (“Mushroom Pop-Up,” Dec. 7). Last Thursday, police raided the shop. Four men were arrested, including the shop’s alleged owner, Steven Tachie Jr., and the man said to be the shop’s manager, Jeremiahs Geronimo. In Multnomah County Circuit Court, attorneys for the accused said their clients didn’t know their business was illegal. According to a probable cause affidavit filed Dec. 9, police had been keeping tabs on the shop for a week. On Dec. 7, two cops “entered the store and bought over 30 grams of psilocybin mushrooms.” The mushrooms “presumptively tested positive to containing psilocybin.” Here’s what our readers had to say:
EJS, via wweek.com: “I can’t believe they got busted. It’s not as if WW has been writing daily articles about the illegality of the operation. But thank goodness the police are cracking down on the mellowest and funnest drug in existence. Meanwhile, people are smoking meth in bus shelters and MAX stops with impunity. It’s kind of funny how Portland made all the worst drugs legal but is still putting people in jail for selling mushrooms.”
the boy in the bath, via Twitter: “Everyone deserves a fair shot at legalization, and this store was ripping off farmers and customers alike. We’re far from stable testing on cubensis for potency and contamination. This was a huge capitalist move in a flooded state, productionwise. They cashed in hard.”
MarySue Healy, via wweek.com: “Those shroomers stealing all those catalytic converters, conducting dangerous drag races, stealing cars, smashing into retail shop windows, shooting at people. I feel so much safer knowing the public is safe from these microdosers.”
Troy Stutzman, via wweek.com: “Fentanyl dealers are walking away. Shroom salesmen get $1.5 million bail!
“I gotta be lying in a pool of my own blood to get a cop to show up. The media narcs out a shroom shop and it’s raided like Miami Vice! Gimme a frickin’ break!”
Don Carlos Toledo, via Twitter: “Meanwhile, all across Oregon, you have cops preemptively announcing they won’t enforce Measure 114 regardless of the courts because, heaven fucking forfend, little Timmy not find an AR-15 with a 30-round clip left by Santa under the tree this year.”
rutgerinoregon, via wweek.com: “The plan was to pop up, sell a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of shrooms, then disappear before the Portland Police Bureau got on the stick. It would have worked too if it wasn’t for those pesky reporters at WW.”
Sharia Mayfield, via Twitter: “Two words: jury nullification.
“This isn’t the prosecution flex people want. We want dangerous, assaultive, rapey, violent, thieving, destructive and abusive people prosecuted most.”
jimbo, via wweek.com: “Overthinking leads to stress. Underthinking leads to jail. They could have planned this out a little better.”
Edward Stratton, via Facebook: “I used to buy weed from a Chinese restaurant that sold raffle tickets for $40 each. Plausible deniability.”
Darlene Barnes, via Facebook: “I drove by there two days ago during the lunch hour, and the line was so long that people were reading books while waiting in line. I thought, wow, that place must have great food. Haha!”
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