[420 Girl]

SUGAR GROVE -- In an unusual move in the Fox Valley, village police plan to start writing tickets -- instead of making arrests -- for first-timers caught with small amounts of marijuana. Police Chief Bradley Sauer said the change will keep officers from spending long hours in court on minor drug charges and also allow those who slip up just once to keep their records clean. "This is a warning on steroids," he said.

Tickets for first-time marijuana possession or drug paraphernalia possession will be $200. Sauer said those fines were in line with the fees judges typically hand down in court.

Both marijuana and paraphernalia possession are state violations, but towns can change those to town ordinances if they want, said Kane County State's Attorney John Barsanti. However, village ordinances cannot carry any jail time, only fines.

Barsanti predicted that Sugar Grove's changes wouldn't affect the county's court load. "If everyone in the county did that, maybe," he said.

Sugar Grove's new ordinance appears to be a Fox Valley first. Neither Barsanti nor Sauer know of any other area towns that write tickets instead of making arrests for marijuana possession, and several local police departments said they hadn't ever considered doing that.

"All fines and possible prison time (for marijuana possession) are set by a judge," said Aurora police spokesman Dan Ferrelli.

The same holds true in Montgomery, where Deputy Police Chief Daniel Meyers warned, ""If someone is in possession of marijuana in our town, they will be arrested."

Geneva Cmdr. Steve Mexin said such a change would have to be weighed carefully. "We have not engaged in any type of serious talk about it," he said. "Before we would do that, we would definitely want to reach out to the community, the schools, the state's attorney's office."

Sauer said police will contact schools if students are caught with marijuana, as they already do with students caught drinking. He added that police can change the ticket to an arrest if they discover that it's not a first offense, or if they would prefer to have a judge hear their case. "If they want their day in court, we can do an arrest," he said.

And of course, a first-time offense doesn't always equal a get-out-of-jail-free card.

"If you have 10 pounds of marijuana on you," Sauer said, "you're going to get arrested."

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