Who doesn’t love starting their week off with some confrontation? 

A LoCO reader alerted us to the existence of a video recorded recently by a man contacted by a Eureka Police officer on the street corner in front of the Bayshore Mall. The topic of discussion? EPD had apparently received numerous calls that the amateur videographer and his associate were flying a cardboard sign advertising .22 ammunition for sale. 

Oh boy!

In the nearly 16-minute video — posted to LiveLeak yesterday and reportedly filmed the day before — officer Joshua Siipola approaches the men to inquire about their operation and asks to see a business license. The unnamed salesman refuses and instead asks Siipola to produce three forms of identification to prove he’s a police officer. The two sides never really find common ground — comparisons to “Nazi Germany” are invoked, a pocket-sized Constitution is produced. The officer is ultimately told he is “free to go” by the man before the clip ends.

Naturally, after watching the entire exchange, we wanted to know if our aggressive Constitutional scholar was correct about his ability to street-peddle bullets.

LoCO reached out to Eureka Police Chief Andy Mills for comment on street ammunition sales. He said he spoke with the city’s attorney about it and it is, in fact, illegal. While California does allow for the unlicensed sale of ammunition, according to the Eureka Municipal code: “It is unlawful for any person over 18 years of age to peddle, solicit, canvass, engage in transient selling or sidewalk vending … within the corporate limits of the city without first obtaining a license …” (you can poke around Eureka’s code of ordinances here; Title XI, § 118.15 is where we found our answer).

According to Mills the city’s attorney would absolutely prosecute such a case.

So for would-be entrepreneurs out there considering their own Eureka street ammo shop, eh, don’t.