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Mountain View police raided a building on Independence Avenue Thursday night on a search warrant and seized over 800 marijuana plants. Three adults were later arrested in San Jose in connection to the search.
At around 3 p.m. Mountain View police entered suite B at 1132 Independence Avenue, and seized marijuana with an estimated street value of $500,000, according to a Mountain View police blog post. Police also seized illegal weapons, some of them stolen, including assault rifle and a number of handguns.
Marijuana grow equipment, such as large industrial lamps, fans and electrical equipment were also stripped from the building.
Police searched two San Jose residences in connection with the Mountain View operation at 3 p.m. yesterday. In one residence they located more firearms, over 30 pounds of dried and packed marijuana and a “honey oil lab,” used to produce a concentrated form of marijuana, according to the blog post. Police also found a toddler present in the home and took it into custody.
In the other residence, police found more illegal weapons, methamphetamine and two military-grade flash bang/stun grenades.
Three people were arrested during the San Jose search, including 33-year-old Semir Metovic, 32-year-old Tito Hernandez and 29-year-old Abby Rose. All three were arrested on charges ranging from possession of marijuana for sale, felon in possession of a firearm, possession of a destructive device, felony child endangerment and manufacturing a controlled substance. Hernandez’s bail is set at $385,000, and no bail has been set for Metovic and Rose.
The building is in the industrial part of Mountain View behind Costco, with a sign over the door with the business name “Monarchy Arcade Game Restoration and Collector.” Police do not know how long the operation has gone on. One witness, who works a few offices away from the building, said people in the church next door could smell marijuana.
The drug bust was a joint effort conducted by the Mountain View Police Department with help from the Milpitas Police Department, the San Jose Police Department’s Bomb Unit, Mountain View’s Crimes Against Persons, Gang Suppression Unit and Youth Services Units, the Santa Clara County Specialized Enforcement Team and the Regional Auto Theft Task Force.
I was wondering what was going on. Glad it was much ado about nothing.
I don’t know what you say that it was “much ado about nothing.”
Setting aside the legality of marijuana consumption, these illegal growing operations are extremely dangerous.
Typically, these facilities are crammed full of high-output growing lamps that drawn enormous amounts of electricity. Usually, the electricity is stolen by tapping into power before the meter. This is always done in a way that is not code compliant, and the load exceeds what the line was designed for. In the same way, water is often stolen as well. Of course, Joe Consumer ultimately ends up paying for these thefts in the form of higher utility rates.
Worse, these excessive electrical loads are a high fire risk, endangering the lives of neighbors.
These growing operations also use chemical fertilizers, etc. and the runoff plus any waste material is toxic. Again, either the city sewer operator is forced to deal with elevated levels of chemicals. If they are dumping into a storm drain, that’s even worse, since those flow untreated directly into the San Francisco Bay.
Lastly, the people who operate these sort of facilities are often violent people, it’s not some little old lady growing orchids on the window sill. Note that the two arrested had prior felony convictions.
I don’t know what planet you are from, but I don’t want illegal marijuana grow houses where I live.
Now if John Q. Public wants to legalize marijuana, that’s fine, just make sure it is taxed like heck, so various agencies have adequate resources to enforce safety and code compliance, so growing operations are not an excessive danger to the general public.
No kidding, grow your own people. With CA legal growers exemption card will allow you to grow more than enough plants for yourself in your own back yard.
With our ample sunlight and fertile soil, the plants thrive and are better quality than indoor plants anyways. Extra can often be donated to co-ops.
Mtn View Farmer, I don’t think this was for personal use.
@Cheech: “I don’t think this was for personal use. ”
Maybe they were REALLY stressed out? haha. No, I agree, I guess my comment was for the people who would be buying it.
one down another 1000 more to go. Weed usage has become so common and downtown smells weed all the time, especially in the evening hours. It feels almost I live in a third would country with absolutely no laws and regulations. I hope the law enforcement will wake up someday and smell the weed stink and realize that it is not just a recreational use and that there is a big business in growing and selling it. By the way, this is not an isolated problem in Mountain View and it is very very widespread since weed costs lot of money and we have many many small local cartels in this business now.
Just because you can smell it does not mean laws are being broken.
In fact is its because of laws and regulations that people can smoke cannabis. It used to be illegal in this state, but now there are exceptions and laws to back up those exceptions.
I worry more about booze hounds downtown. Those people are dangerous.
We planted some ” Exotic Coneseuer Seeds ” 1/2 were male just like the old days. Hope to get the tasty KIND of Sweet SMOKE.
The emphasis on “personal use” in the comments is uninformed and disregards the nature of the cannabis business. Many growers are affiliated with collectives and grow large quantities to serve their patient base. Where do you think the cannabis for the tens — if not hundreds — of thousands of patients up and down the Peninsula comes from?
Let’s not pretend we’re talking about a dangerous drug here. Cannabis remains “one of the safest therapeutic substances known to man” (DEA Ruling, 1988) with death toll or zero after thousands of years of medicinal use. Patients up and down the Peninsula use it to safely treat conditions ranging from ADHD and anxiety to PMS, migraines, cancer, diabetes, Parkinson’s Disease and just about every other ailment you can think of.
Notwithstanding the illegal arsenal found with this particular grow, many cannabis growers are heroes who put their freedom on the line every day to supply an incredibly safe and effective botanical medicine to a fast-growing patient base.
Too bad our police are wasting time with potted plants and drip irrigateion when they could be fighting real crime.
Too bad the MV police won’t give real numbers and only privide exagerated estimates of street value.
Just legalize canibus, tax and regulate it like alcohol (a much more harmful drug). Then then city/county/state would be making millions of dollars each year instead of arresting its citizens.
By continuing to fight the so-called “War on Drugs,” the US government has worsened these problems of society instead of alleviating them. A system of regulation and control of these substances (by the government, replacing the current system of control by the black market) would be a less harmful, less costly, more ethical, and more effective public policy.
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The previous comment was perfect. It is the Prohibition mentality of the government that keeps us in the 1920’s, and we all know how that worked out.
It WAS a little odd for the MVPD to raid a pot grow… it must have diverted considerable resources away from their more profitable activities.
Oh, my. All those California stops left unharvested.
Notice how the police got every odd-ball unit involved. What would the “Regional Auto Theft Task” force have to do with a pot bust?
Budget justification.
The only way to make all of these grow houses go away is to make weed legal.
How many times have you heard of an illegal liquor distillery being busted in Mountain View?