What a bunch of bullshit. Looked like a nice set up, but the radiant heat for the 1000 watt HPS bulbs and humidity probably took its toll on the building.
That wasn't the worst of it. It was all the mold. They even saw live mold spores flying through the air. It wasn't hydroponic, it was soil based and wentacross 9 floors, of a 13 story highrise. The tenants are scared, and many are pissed off. The gro-op started about 1yr ago, which was the time many of the young kids in the building started getting sick. Numerous cases of children with asthma, and other breathing difficulties that only started after moving into that building. We certainly have not heard the last of this. I think people are angry, ...not so much because they wanted to grow marijuana, but because they were willing to expose so many innocent people to health & safety risks, posed by the mold and the likelihood of fire. I can't believe they managed to run that much power out of a single outlet.
Ever since we decriminalized marijuana possession up here, it has really freed up alot of resources. Instead of prosecuting individual pot smokers, and clogging the legal system with petty users, they've been able to focus on the gro-ops. The police are shutting down gro-ops left & right up here. They just don't always make the news unless it's an unusually large seizure or if there are complications involved.
Now with all the helicopters with infra-red, and the push to educate the public on what to look for, they're taking them out of houses, and moving them into apartment buildings which are not individually metered. You can't tell if any one apartment is using an exhorbitant amount of electricity. So far the biggest bust I heard about was when they found an operation valued at $30 million inside an old abandoned Molson's beer brewery. Robert Molson is a friend of mine, and he's a real health nut. It is a constant source of pain and embarrassment to him to know his family's fortune came from manufacturing alcohol. When they busted the gro-op in one of his family's old breweries, I swear he almost changed his name. {lol}
Grow-Ops Busted In 905 On A Weekly BasisSaturday November 25, 2006
You never really know what's going on behind your neighbours' doors.
That's the message from police across the GTA, who suggest a grow-up could be in the last house you'd suspect.
When York Regional Police uncovered a residential marijuana lab last week thanks to their infrared cameras, the news came as a surprise to many nearby.
But police in the area say they bust a grow-up every three to four days, meaning not only could they be anywhere, they're probably everywhere.
Last Sunday police arrested three men after uncovering an operation at a house in Vaughan (
click here for video). They found 550 plants worth $500,000. There were no signs from the outside in that case, though sometimes grow-ops can give themselves away.
Lucy Castellani called authorities when she thought the house next to her was on fire.
"There was no smoke, there was no fire," recalls Castellani.
"It was actually the steam from the heat that was inside the house that they were using to grow their plants."
"When they say, 'You don't know who your neighbours are,' you really don't know who your neighbours are."
So what should you look for?
"We're looking for roofs that do not have snow on them when the surrounding roofs do, a lack of activity at the house, lights on in the basement 24 hours a day," said York Regional Police Insp. Tom Carrique.
