Pied Piper's Emporium, a longtime Bremerton head shop on Callow Avenue, is closing in October. Outside the shop, the mural of a frog and the Beatles remain.

SHARE Employees Vince Garrido (left) and Jen Schmidt handle counter duties Monday at Pied Piper's Emporium on Callow Avenue in Bremerton. The store is closing in October due to over-saturation of the local market, the owner said. Employee Jen Schmidt wraps a pipe for a customer Monday at Pied Piper's Emporium on Callow Avenue. The store will close in October. The store's owner said that a more open marijuana market has brought cheaper paraphernalia that is hurting business.

By Josh Farley of the Kitsap Sun

BREMERTON — Within a case of colorful glassware at Pied Piper's Emporium, a sticker hearkens back to what now feels like ancient history in Washington state: "I (heart) My Tobacco Water Pipe."

There was a time when the phrase "tobacco water pipe" provided the supposed legal cover for those purchasing them as marijuana bongs. No more. In 2012, voters in Washington legalized cannabis and subsequent bong rips for adults. The sticker, at this point, is merely for a laugh every now and then at the Callow Avenue store.

But in a paradoxical twist, Pied Piper's, long a home base for cannabis culture in Bremerton, is closing down due to the vamped competition the legal marijuana market has created.

"What always paid our bills were pipes," owner Alyssa Miller said. "Now, there's a million places to buy pipes all around us."

Since 56 percent of Washington voters approved legalization in November 2012, three pot stores and a head shop have opened in the vicinity. That, combined with two recent burglaries in as many months, got Miller thinking it might be time for the store to end its 18-year run.

"We used to be a little niche business," she said. "But now it's all been commercialized."

Miller was only 17 when the store opened at Sixth Street and Pacific Avenue, now home to a large office building constructed by Poulsbo developer Tim Ryan. At 20, Miller got a job there, and just three years later she bought the business from its founder. In 2005, it moved to 816 Pacific; the store again moved, this time to Callow, and has been there almost seven more years.

According to Miller, employees and some customers, legalization flooded the market with cheaper goods used to get high. The store prides itself on carrying American-made glassware that Miller, a glass artist herself, ensures is of high quality. But those getting stoned these days might not care about that.

"It opened the market so wide that it allowed for the influx of all these cheap products," Angela Kartischko, a longtime Pied Piper's customer, said of legalization.

Vince Garrido, an eight-year employee of the store, compared it to big-box stores that put smaller, locally owned places out of business.

"It's like Walmart versus mom-and-pop stores," Garrido said.

The store will close Oct. 18. Miller plans to liquidate inventory by slashing prices. She'll take anything left to a barter fair in Okanogan County in late October.