A 25-year-old New Ulm man faces charges following what police call a bust of his personal picnic of marijuana-laced baked goods, complete with marijuana butter, in a Mankato park.

The arrest occurred on Tuesday, 4/20, a date widely celebrated by marijuana enthusiasts.

"I don't want to assume anything, who knows?" said Cmdr. Craig Frericks of the Mankato Police Department, when asked whether the date was more than coincidence.

The man, who has not yet been formally charged by the Blue Earth County attorney's office, was arrested after police got a tip that people were possibly using drugs in Land of Memories Park.

There, officers spotted people getting into a vehicle and stopped it as it left, Frericks said.

Officers searched the vehicle and found marijuana, plus 10 individually wrapped brownies, six loaves of banana bread and butter with a distinctive greenish hue.

Based on the odor of the goods, police thought they contained more than eggs and flour, Frericks said. All of the baked goods, meticulously wrapped in aluminum foil, were found to be laced with marijuana, as was the butter, Frericks said.

Since his arrest, the man has been released from the Blue Earth County Jail. According to court records, he pleaded guilty in 2008 to fifth-degree possession of marijuana, drunken driving and disorderly conduct and is on five years' probation.

Frericks said the 4/20 incident marked his first brownie bust.

"As long as I've been here, and it's been 14 years, it's the first I've seen of it," he said.

ABBY SIMONS