Item found at Modesto store for drugs, not bomb

MODESTO -- The parking lot of a Modesto Wal-Mart store was cordoned off for a bomb scare Tuesday morning.

Police responded to the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market at Coffee Road and Orangeburg Avenue about 9:20 a.m. for a report of a suspicious device near an island in the center of the parking lot, said Lt. Rick Armendariz.

The device, which Wal-Mart employees located and thought looked like a pipe bomb, was near a water jug refill station. Police asked for the assistance of the Stanislaus County Sheriff's Department's bomb squad.

The parking lot was cordoned off, but Wal-Mart was not evacuated, Armendariz said.

Bomb squad deputies determined that the object was not a pipe bomb but drug paraphernalia used to store or make hashish, Armendariz said. The scene was cleared about 11:15 a.m.