A vehicle abruptly leaving a parking lot at Saxe Middle School and the smell of smoked marijuana when a police officer finally stopped it on Farm Road Thursday evening led to marijuana-related charges.
New Canaan police gave this account (an accusation not proven in court) of the matter, which resulted in an infraction ticket:
At about 10 p.m., a police officer on patrol noticed a car parked in a back parking lot at Saxe Middle School, near basketball courts.
As soon as the officer drove by, the vehicle's headlights went on and abruptly left the lot, traveling toward South Avenue and then on to Farm Road. The police officer followed and caught up with the vehicle close to Farm Road's intersection with Old Stamford Road.
Two young men were inside. They told the officer they were playing basketball, and there was a basketball in the vehicle, but the shoes they were wearing, resembling slippers, didn't seem right for basketball — and the officer smelled marijuana.
The officer had both the driver and passenger get out of the car, and he searched them for marijuana or drug paraphernalia. He found nothing on them. He also found nothing in the car.
In the trunk, however, there was a backpack with both a container and a grinder, something often used by marijuana smokers, along with rolling papers and two pipes used for smoking. There was a small amount of marijuana in the grinder.
The passenger, a 20-year-old resident of Juniper Road, said the backpack was his. He was charged with possession of less than half an ounce of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia, both infractions, and issued a ticket.
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