SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT (publ. 6/16/2012, page A2)

A story about the scheduling of a girls volleyball tournament and HempCon 2012 at the San Jose Convention Center incorrectly characterized “Doobons” as coupons that could be redeemed for cash value. Doobons.com is a clearinghouse for information about medicinal marijuana and will have a booth at HempCon.

When Narda Skov signed up her 10- and 14-year-old daughters for one of Northern California’s top youth volleyball leagues, she intended to keep the girls busy with wholesome activities and away from the temptations so readily available to them elsewhere. The last place the Piedmont mom wanted to find her kids — much less deliver them there herself — was the den of iniquity 840 underage girls will enter this weekend: the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.

As Skov and other parents getting ready for the girls 17-and-under volleyball tournament just discovered, this weekend they will be bumping into glassy-eyed glaucoma sufferers taking part in the reefer sadness of HempCon 2012, San Jose’s medical marijuana show, which blazes up today in the Convention Center’s South Hall.

“I’m just beside myself that we’re actually paying money to put our kids in front of all this marijuana,” said Skov, who found out about the potential culture clash from billboards promoting HempCon. “I know there are a lot of great things about San Jose, but this weekend, I feel like it’s one big Burning Man.”

She didn’t seem particularly comforted by reassurances from a convention center spokeswoman that the two events will share a head space more than a physical one. South Hall, which resembles a large termite tent, is “a completely separate building from the convention center,” said Meghan Horrigan, director of communications for Team San Jose, which runs the convention center. The bong bonanza is expected to draw 15,000 people.

This weekend stirred up uncomfortable memories for Skov of the most recent Northern California Volleyball Association tournament at the convention center in January. The place was overrun with “furries” — people who dress in animal costumes — at FurCon. “First we had the fuzzy people, now we have HempCon,” Skov said. “Come on, San Jose! What’s happening?”

Bad juxtapositions

That’s what Tom D’Aquino wanted to know, too. His 13-year-old daughter, Lana, plays for the same Golden Bears Volleyball Club in Berkeley. But that’s not what worries D’Aquino.

“They’re literally distributing marijuana inside this convention center,” he said. “Obviously, management isn’t going to let people smoke inside, so they go outside and smoke it up.” And because the convention center doesn’t allow people to bring in outside food, D’Aquino said volleyball families often set up temporary encampments outside the building. There, he fears, the charcoal smoke from their grills may mix with the aromatic offerings of BodyBud Botanicals and Granny Purps.

“It’s just a bunch of degenerates who use medical marijuana as an excuse to do whatever they want to do,” D’Aquino said. “They’re generally people that I don’t think should be commingling with this group of 12- to 17-year-old volleyball girls.”

Attempts to reach a representative for Mega Productions, which runs HempCon, were highly unsuccessful. Someone calling himself “Tony Z” told a caller he could only speak to people whose “credentials” he had vetted. He promised to call back, and then totally didn’t.

It isn’t unusual for odd scheduling juxtapositions to occur at large facilities like the San Jose Convention Center, where events are sometimes booked years in advance. In this case, no one was sure who got there first — the setters, the stoners or the private school presentation of “The Little Mermaid,” showing Saturday and Sunday. Couldn’t they all just get along?

“What do these parents want us to do?” asked an exasperated Donna Donaghy, executive director of the Northern California Volleyball Association. “Do they want us to cancel the tournament? It would be interesting to see what Team San Jose would do if I call them and say, ‘I’m sorry. You can’t book that here.’ “

Fuzzy, buzzy

Even among volleyball parents, not everyone was worried that their little girls would be crashing the gates of HempCon. “If my daughter wanted to buy grass or dope, she could get it in downtown Berkeley; we don’t have to drive all the way down to San Jose,” said Carrie Dovzak, whose 14-year-old daughter plays for the Golden Bears Club. “Our kids are into Justin Bieber, looking good and makeup. They’re not into searching out where they’re going to get their next joint, that’s for sure. If anything, the people at HempCon might turn off our girls so much, it will have the opposite effect.”

Horrigan said there will be added security outside the convention center this weekend to make sure everyone has exactly the experience they came for — and nothing more. The same thing happened in January when the NCVA learned it would share the convention center with FurCon. “Some of the other parents told me they had checked into it and found things that made it out to be basically a porn fetish convention,” said D’Aquino, who conceded his knowledge of furries is based on an episode of television’s “CSI.”

“As soon as we heard about that, we were big-time alarmed,” Donaghy said.

Parents of volleyball players were warned not to stay in hotels where furries had booked rooms. Skov was one of the few parents who ignored that warning.

“Oh my God,” she said, recalling several tense elevator rides during the tournament. “Who even ever heard of these people? I’m like, ‘OK, if you’re so unhappy you’ve got to be an animal, that’s a little strange to me.’ Not my world.”

The Skovs will high-tail it home every night this weekend so they don’t have to spend any more time than necessary in fuzzy, buzzy San Jose. “No way I’m staying,” Skov said. “I’ll be happy to get the hell out of there.”

Contact Bruce Newman at 408-920-5004.