Police seize hundreds of marijuana plants at grow house
by Steven Felschundneff | steven@claremont-courier.com
Claremont Police, along with the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, raided a marijuana grow house Monday morning, confiscating hundreds of plants as well as dried and processed marijuana.
At approximately 8 a.m., police officers and the sheriff’s marijuana enforcement team served a search warrant at a home located in the 100 block of Kirkwood Avenue, which near the corner of College Avenue and Arrow Highway.
Witnesses at the scene described the officers approaching the house with guns drawn, before entering the residence. Inside, they found marijuana growing in every room and removed 667 plants, 120 pounds of drying cannabis and approximately 80 pounds of processed cannabis, with a total street value of about $500,000.
“The extreme measures used to illegally grow the marijuana endangered the neighborhood. The home was filled with non-code compliant wiring used to power special lighting and air filtration systems. These lighting systems are often the source of fires within a grow. The lighting system was disconnected to eliminate the hazard to the public,” Lieutenant Karlan Bennett said in a news release.
Just after 8:30 a.m. Monday, several unmarked police vehicles were still on the street adjacent to the home while officers removed the plants in large bundles and threw them into a utility trailer. Some of the plants were set aside and lined up on the sidewalk. Bright lights in the home’s garage were still illuminated and a bulletin board on which the suspects kept notes about the grow was visible.
The city’s building inspector has “red tagged” the home, deeming it unsafe to occupy.
The investigation remains active as police work to determine who is responsible for the marijuana grow. If you have any information regarding this case, please contact the Claremont Police Department at (909) 399-5411.
