Community service for man with ‘weed’

A BELMONT man who pleaded guilty to possession of a marijuana cigarette was ordered to do 140 hours of community service in the Port-of-Spain area over the next 12 months, when he appeared before Senior Magistrate Lianne Lee Kim at the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Fourth Court on Wednesday. Ahira Peters, 20, of 34 Norfork Street, Belmont, was arrested and charged on March 25 by an officer attached to the Organised Crime and Narcotic Unit  in Tobago, when he was caught smoking the cigarette near his home. The court heard that Peters told the officer that he was “a smoker not a seller.” In a bid to secure community service for his client, Peters’ attorney, Larry Williams, highlighted the age of the accused and said that “younger persons take chances.” He added that Peters, a retail store manager, was “wiser because of his run-in with the law” and asked Lee Kim to take into consideration the fact that his client had pleaded guilty and not wasted the court’s time. After handing down her sentence, the magistrate warned the accused not to attempt to squeeze the hours to be served into one week. “Spread it out,” she said.