Hundreds of local entheogenic 

and 
psychedelic 
plant 
activists 

gathered on the University of 
Michigan Diag on Sept. 19 for the 
first-ever Entheofest, a celebration 
and call for the decriminalization 
of plant medicines and fungi in Ann 
Arbor and beyond. The event began 
exactly at 11:11 a.m. and ended at 2:22 
p.m.

The celebration came a year after 

the Ann Arbor City Council voted to 
decriminalize the use and possession 
of entheogenic plants in September 
2020. The resolution the council 
voted to approve stated that arresting 
individuals for use of entheogenic 
plants such as mushrooms would 
be the city’s “lowest priority.” At 
the meeting, many community 
members voiced their support for 
the 
decriminalization 
of 
these 

psychedelic substances.

With 
the 
passage 
of 
the 

resolution, Ann Arbor became one 
of a handful of cities in the country to 
decriminalize psychedelics. Denver 
legalized entheogenic plants in May 
2019, becoming the first city to do so. 

In January 2021, Washtenaw 

County 
Prosecutor 
Eli 
Savit 

announced that his office will no 
longer prosecute individuals for use 
of marijuana or entheogenic plants. 
A few months later, in August, 
City Council declared September 
the Entheogenic Plant and Fungi 
Awareness month.

Ellie 
Ribitwer 
and 
Marina 

Chupac, criminal defense attorneys 
in Wayne County, decided to attend 
Entheofest 
together 
in 
support 

of 
the 
decriminalization 
and 

destigmatization of entheogens. 

“This is the beginning of getting 

everybody together, passing out 
information, setting up booths and 
having the prosecutors speak on it,” 
Ribitwer said. “There’s been a lot of 
prosecutions for this when really 
it doesn’t need to be categorized as 
a drug. I think it has crazy healing 
properties, the clinical tests on 
PTSD and depression and all of that 
is profound. And I think the War on 
Drugs is ending, and if Michigan can 
get ahead of it the way that California 
and Oregon have, let’s do it.” 

Chupac told The Michigan Daily 

she has “no shame” in admitting that 
she uses entheogens because she 
finds them helpful for improving her 
mental health.

“I’ve used these psychedelic plants 

in the past to open my mind and my 
heart,” Chupac said. “It’s changed 
the way I live, the way I look at 
everything I see and my connection 
to other people and that’s important. 
I think that psychedelics, in general, 
help open up that gateway, and the 
more connected we are, the better off 
we are as a unit.”

School of Social Work student 

Christian Smith attended the event 
and said Entheofest was planned 
in celebration of the anniversary of 
the council’s vote to decriminalize 
entheogenic plants.

“Psychedelics … have been used 

by humans for thousands of years 
for healing, both (for) interpersonal 
and intercultural healing,” Smith 
said. “And this is a celebration of the 
year anniversary of decriminalizing 
sacred plant medicines in Ann 
Arbor.”

State Sen. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann 

Arbor, spoke to the crowd about his 
efforts to pass Senate Bill 631, which 
would legalize entheogenic plants 
and fungi for non-commercial use in 
Michigan. 

Students have expressed concern 

that a lack of knowledge about 
potential exposures could lead to 
increased spread of the virus since 
the University of Michigan stopped 
sending classroom and building 
COVID-19 notifications on Sept. 14. 

Previously, after a student tested 

positive for COVID-19, the University 
sent out a notification to the class 
rosters for all in-person and hybrid 
classes that the student was taking. 
However, the notification did not 
specify which class the student was 
in, the date that students could have 
been exposed or if the student who 
tested positive had even attended 
class in-person recently.

The University announced this 

policy change in an article published 
in the University Record. The 
announcement said that classrooms 
have not been associated with the 
spread of COVID-19, simply being 
in a class with somebody who tests 
positive for COVID-19 does not 
qualify as a “close contact” exposure 
and the notifications were confusing 
and of limited benefit.

University 
President 
Mark 

Schlissel and Provost Susan Collins 
previously said classrooms are “the 
safest place to be on campus” due 
to mask and vaccine requirements. 
According to the Campus Blueprint, 
95% of students, 83% of staff and 94% 
of faculty are fully vaccinated.

Rackham student Ryan Glauser, 

COVID-19 caucus co-chair of the 
Graduate Employees’ Union, said the 
University did not inform GEO or 
Graduate Student Instructors prior 
to announcing the decision to end 
COVID-19 classroom notifications. 
Glauser said he would have preferred 

to learn about this information from a 
supervisor rather than via a Michigan 
Daily story.

“There is no reason that the union, 

or me, should find out that I’m no 
longer being told I’m getting exposed 
to COVID from a newspaper article,” 
Glauser said. “My supervisor should 
be the one telling me we’re making a 
substantial policy change here.” 

Though 
the 
University 

discontinued the notifications, they 
will continue to trace close contacts 
of people who tested positive for 
COVID-19, the Record article states. 
Robert Ernst, executive director of 
University Health Service, told the 
University 
Record 
close-contact 

tracing is a more effective mitigation 
strategy than the emails.

“Targeted 
individual 
case 

investigation and associated contact 
tracing are more effective parts of the 
mitigation strategy designed to limit 
spread,” Ernst said.

Glauser said he never received any 

COVID-19 classroom notifications, 
though several of his students 
personally told him they were 
diagnosed with COVID-19 or were 
quarantined due to close classroom 
contacts.

“I’ve only found out because my 

students have told me, and in the first 
few weeks I’ve had about a quarter 
of my class miss a week because of 
COVID issues,” Glauser said.

Music, Theatre & Dance junior 

Sam Todd said he believes the 
University should have improved the 
COVID-19 classroom notifications 
instead of ending them altogether.

“(The University) would tell you 

that there was a COVID case … but 
(they’re) not going to tell you where it 
is,” Todd said. “It was confusing, but 
don’t throw the baby out the window.”

From local coffee shops to Cuban 

restaurants to University of Michigan 
residence halls, Ann Arbor businesses 
say 
they 
are 
facing 
employee 

shortages, when the number of 
customers are increasing as COVID-
19 restrictions ease up and vaccination 
rates increase. 

This trend also exists nationwide, 

as labor shortages continue to 
challenge 
business 
owners 
and 

strain the productivity of their 
establishments. On campus, residence 
and dining halls are also facing similar 

difficulties in searching for student 
employees.

Economics 
professor 
Linda 

Tesar 
said 
that 
some 
people 

are still concerned about being 
exposed to COVID-19, especially 
in establishments where possibly 
unvaccinated 
customers 
are 

constantly coming in and out. 

Some people may have also begun 

to aim for higher pay and are willing 
to wait for a more ideal job to come 
along, Tesar said.

“Some workers could be covering 

their expenses with the COVID 
stimulus support and therefore have 
time to look for the job they really 
want, rather than take the next job 

that is available,” Tesar said. “And it 
could be that people’s views about 
how much they need to be paid to do 
certain kinds of work have shifted 
with the pandemic.” 

LSA junior Anthony Marx, a 

residential advisor in North Quad 
Residence Hall, said dining hall 
hours and residence hall activities 
have been limited due to the small 
number of available staff members. 
Some floors that are supposed to have 
two residential advisors are left with 
one, and dining halls are only open 
for a few blocks of time during the 
weekend, Marx said. 

Marx added that he hopes more 

people will apply to become staff 

members and allow dining and 
residency to return to a more normal 
schedule. 

“I would say apply for those jobs 

at MDining or Housing,” Marx said. 
“They are really a great opportunity 
to get some work experience under 
your belt but also support the 
University and (help us) get back 
to those hours that (students) were 
used to.”

During the first week of classes, 

as students faced long lines for 
busses, University spokesperson Kim 
Broekhuizen told the Daily it was due 
to a University labor shortage.

michigandaily.com
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Wednesday, September 22, 2021

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Ann Arbor, UMich face a shortage of 
employees as students return to city

Leasing companies sue city over requirement that they wait 150 days to show property

ARJUN THAKKAR

Daily Staff Reporter

CAMPUS LIFE
Campus reacts to end of 

COVID-19 notices

Community no longer notified of classroom exposure

Design by Jessica Chiu

ANN ARBOR

Local businesses, residence halls struggle to meet heightened demand for service

JUSTIN O’BEIRNE

Daily Staff Reporter

Multiple landlords and leasing 

companies in Ann Arbor are suing 
the city of Ann Arbor for a City 
Council ordinance passed Aug. 2 that 
gives tenants more time before they 
can be asked to renew their contracts.

The new Early Leasing Ordinance 

requires that landlords wait until 150 
days prior to the end of a lease before 
showing a property to prospective 
tenants. Before this ordinance was 
passed, landlords only had to wait 
70 days after a lease started before 
showing leasing units, though leasing 

companies have historically found 
ways to avoid the regulations.

Students and tenants have said 

the previous leasing timeline puts 
pressure on them to renew their 
leases or sign a new lease very early 
in the academic year. The ordinance 
aims to limit this pressure on tenants 
by giving them more time to decide 
if they want to renew as well as by 
giving them more time to search 
for the next year’s housing and 
roommates. 

Landlords 
shared 
their 

opposition to the restrictions during 
previous City Council hearings and 
are now considering ways to get 
around the regulations, which went 

into effect Aug. 15.

The Washtenaw Area Apartment 

Association, a non-profit organization 
that advocates on behalf of rental 
property owners, filed a lawsuit on 
Sep. 10 against the city of Ann Arbor in 
the U.S. District Court Eastern District 
of Michigan seeking to overturn the 
city’s early leasing restrictions. 

The plaintiffs, which include 

several companies that lease to 
students in Ann Arbor, argue 
the ordinance violates the First 
Amendment’s 
protection 
of 

“restrictions on commercial speech” 
that apply to landlords.

The landlord plaintiffs claim the 

ordinance did not have a specific 

governmental purpose and was 
solely created with the “private 
purpose” of catering to University of 
Michigan students. They also argued 
the regulations would expand the 
presence of unregulated renting.

“By enacting the (ordinance 

provisions) at the behest of certain 
University of Michigan students, the 
City has exercised its police power 
in the service of special, private 
interests at the sole expense of Ann 
Arbor landlords,” the complaint 
reads. “The (provisions) simply serve 
(to) encourage off-books or black-
market leasing activity.”

DOMINICK SOKOTOFF/Daily

Landlords are suing the city of Ann Arbor over an ordinance that gives tenants more time before they have to renew their contracts.

Landlords resisting early leasing 
ordinance prompt frustration 

First Entheofest 

draws crowd to Diag

Event celebrated decriminalization of psychedelics

EMILY BLUMBERG

Daily Staff Reporter

LIAT WEINSTEIN, CALDER LEW-

IS, KRISTINA ZHENG & MARTHA 

LEWAND

Daily News Editors & Daily Staff Reporter

See ENTHEOFEST, Page 2

Read more at MichiganDaily.com
Read more at MichiganDaily.com

HOUSING

Read more at MichiganDaily.com

