According to growers, 18 separate pot growing operations were crammed into 3 small, nondescript buildings. Arrests were made though no charges have been filed
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DAVID BAUMAN/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Medical marijuana grower Craig Cawley, 53, of Winchester, stands in a former grow room of a French Valley industrial park that was raided by the Drug Enforcement Administration. The owner of the site just outside Murrieta packed 18 medical marijuana growers into the property, charging double normal rates.
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CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly named the Drug Enforcement Administration. Also, a photo caption with the story incorrectly reported the agency responsible for a DEA raid on the property.
Over the past year, an out-of-the-way commercial park on the outskirts of Murrieta became a hub of do-it-yourself medical marijuana growers.
According to the growers, 18 separate operations were crammed into suites in three small, nondescript buildings in French Valley. They grew plants under bright lights and sold the marijuana elsewhere to small numbers of patients. They worked quietly for at least a year, until federal drug agents and sheriff’s deputies shutting down a well-known dispensary stumbled onto their secret gardens.
Three growers were arrested but no charges have been filed. Riverside County district attorney’s spokesman John Hall said his office is not reviewing the case for possible charges. The U.S. attorney’s office said no federal arrests are expected.
The growers said they thought their operations were legal. California law allows members of collectives to buy and sell medical marijuana from each other as long as they are not-for-profit. The growers said they ran such nonprofit collectives.
The incident shows how difficult it still can be to navigate the conflicting state and federal laws governing medical marijuana more than 15 years after California voters made it legal. Marijuana is still considered an illegal narcotic under federal law.
Craig Cawley, 53, of Winchester, was among three people arrested during the raids. He has not been charged with a crime.
Cawley said he talked to officials from the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department and district attorney’s office, whose names he did not know, who told him his setup was OK. He kept his harvest small — many growers believe they won’t be busted for fewer than 100 plants — and felt everything was legal.
“I believed that to the moment I was handcuffed,” Cawley said.
FOR RENT
The tenants said the property was empty until their Orange County-based landlord hit on a new strategy: market it to marijuana growers.
An ad for the property on Craigslist didn’t mention marijuana but encouraged prospective tenants to “GROW GROW GROW”, according to marijuana growers who responded to it.
The ad no longer appears on the website.
Jonathan Cringan, 26, who also was arrested, said the landlord, David Cox, faced two options.
“Either lose the property or … rent it to weed growers,” Cringan said. “‘Cause that’s the only business in California where anybody’s making any money.”
Cox, reached by phone, declined to comment. It is unknown if he will face criminal charges.
For at least a year, the growers said, tenants paid twice the going rate, in cash, for the opportunity to harvest marijuana in the secluded park.
Cawley said he paid $3,000 a month for two adjoining suites. Offices in neighboring buildings rented for about $.60 per square foot, while space in Cox’s buildings cost $1.20, Cawley said.
The deal was worth it because landlords willing to accept small-scale marijuana farms in their buildings were rare, the growers said. And after the U.S. Attorney’s Office last year announced it was going after building owners who rented to dispensaries, even fewer were willing to allow any kind of marijuana activity, they said.
Cox had no shortage of prospective tenants, Cawley said.
“There was a line of people right behind me.”
WELL-KNOWN GROWERS
The property is on Innovation Court, just north of Murrieta off Winchester Road, among a sea of similar-looking rectangular structures. In nearby buildings, tenants include construction and air conditioning contractors, party rental and cleaning businesses.
Craig King, owner of Kitchen Places, said it was well known the buildings next door housed a collection of small marijuana farms.
“When the wind was blowing in the right direction, you could smell it,” he said.
The marijuana operations were housed in three adjacent buildings but run independently, Cringan said. He said the growers mainly kept to themselves, and while he felt he was operating legally, he worried the other operators would one day bring legal problems to his doorstep.
“Nobody’s involved in this industry without knowing that possibility exists,” he said.
DISPENSARIES TARGETED
In October, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Sacramento announced a statewide crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries. Storefronts that sold marijuana had to shut down, the office said, or their operators and their landlords would face penalties.
Most of the operations at the French Valley commercial park were run by small-scale growers who kept a few dozen plants and sold the marijuana off-site to members of small collectives. But the property did house two storefront dispensaries, which sold to thousands of patients on-site.
One of the dispensaries closed soon after the warning, the growers said. The other, Disabled American Veterans Collective, did not.
So in January, Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Riverside County sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant and shut down Disabled American Veterans Collective, which has no relation to the nonprofit veterans services organization.
The dispensary’s owners, Kevin O. Freeman, 38, and Shelly Lee Walker, 28, of Murrieta, were arrested. They have not been charged with any crimes.
While searching the dispensary, officers heard the telltale sounds of large industrial fans and drug-sniffing dogs detected marijuana in adjoining suites, according to a federal search warrant. The discoveries led them to the enclave of growers.
Cringan and Cawley said they would have left the park if authorities had warned them, as they had the dispensary owners.
“I’m not trying to stick a middle finger up to the Justice Department,” Cringan said. “I’ve got respect.”
Cringan, Cawley and Scott Aaron Fielder were arrested on suspicion of cultivation and possession, sale and transportation of marijuana. They were each held for 72 hours and then released without charges being filed.
DEA agents took part in the raids but Department of Justice spokesman Thom Mrozek said no federal arrests were coming.
While some growers talk about improving access to sick people and standing up for patients’ rights, Cringan just wanted a job, he said. At the end of the day, that’s why people shell out thousands for rent and utility bills and risk prison, he said.
“The reality is, nobody would do this if we weren’t making money,” Cringan said. “Nobody’s going to risk going to federal prison unless there was some money in it.”
After graduating from Chaparral High School in Temecula and San Diego State University, Cringan said he was kicked out of George Washington University Law School in Washington, D.C., after an argument with a professor over a failing grade on a paper about medical marijuana laws.
Cawley said he was trying to raise money to start a charity that would send kids to summer camp.
Both men spent three days in jail, spent thousands of dollars on rent, electricity and the supplies that went into confiscated plants, and could wait up to three years before learning if they will be charged with any crimes.
“I’m at a crossroads in my life,” said Cringan, who is now living at home with his father in Menifee. “There aren’t many good choices available.”
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