INDOOR POT FARMS CAST CLOUD OVER SOIL-FREE GARDENING

At Discount Hydroponics, which claims to be the single largest
mail-order dealer of hydroponic gardening supplies, "marijuana" is a
dirty word.

The Riverside store advertises in "High Times," a magazine dedicated
to the cannabis subculture, promising customers discreet packaging and
confidential transactions. But once you step into the company's
18,000-square-foot "warehouse & superstore," pot talk is verboten.

If you utter the "m-word" on the premises, clerks will politely direct
you to a sign at the cash register. It explains that virtually any
plant under the sun can be grown hydroponically and that the store
need not know what its customers are growing.

Discount Hydroponics is the largest of more than half-dozen Inland
Empire stores dedicated to hydroponics gardening -- the growing of
plants with nutrient solutions instead of soil.

Most of the local hydroponics stores are mom-and-pop operations in
tiny storefronts.

Colton has a hydroponics store, and so do Corona and Palm Springs. In
Temecula, dueling stores are neighbors along Interstate 15. Jarrod
Grunder, Grunder Family Organics & Hydroponics' owner, bars talk of
marijuana in the store, even by those using it medically.

Most storeowners either did not respond to requests for interviews or
declined to speak on the record for a story that discussed growing
marijuana.

In recent months, the Inland Empire has seen a wave of police raids at
tract homes-turned-indoor marijuana farms. In the past year, more than
two dozen of the indoor farms have been found in Riverside County alone.

Jarrod Grunder, 33, owner of Grunder Family Organics and Hydroponics
in Riverside, which opened this year, said he doesn't mind discussing
his business because he has nothing to hide. Grunder, who grew up
farming and ranching, said he caters to home vegetable growers.

Talk of marijuana isn't allowed in the store, he said, even by
customers who are card-carrying medical users.

Outside his shop on Magnolia Avenue, potted vegetable plants sit on
the sidewalk. Inside, handpainted signs urge customers to "Grow your
own" alongside a large poster for a music group called "Inhale."

Even narcotics investigators are quick to point out the many
legitimate uses for hydroponics.

Many legitimate farmers use hydroponic growing techniques, and one of
the best-known hydroponic farms is at Disney's Epcot Center in Florida.

Tina Torres operates a hydroponic farm in the Aguanga area, where she
grows herbs, such as basil, that she sells to local grocery stores.
Her plants grow in greenhouses, however, not under electric lamps.

Once, she said, when she was shopping at a San Diego County
hydroponics store, the owner joked to his other customers about her
being an "anomaly," that is, a legitimate commercial grower.

People growing marijuana hydroponically often cram thousands of plants
into a single house, use sophisticated grow lights on timers, systems
that recirculate water and industrial-size carbon air filters to mask
the pungent odor of budding marijuana plants. With coverings on the
windows that keep anyone passing by from seeing inside and any indoor
light from escaping, the houses look normal from the street, But
inside, once the lights kick on, the rooms are lit up like a football
stadium at night.

Those grow lights run up huge electric bills, which often tip off
authorities to an operation's presence.

Sgt. Joseph Pemberton, of Riverside County's West County Narcotics
Task Force, said many of the indoor marijuana-growing operations have
ties to Asian gangs, but investigators see others copying the tract
home-turned-pot farm model.

"People are paying attention," Pemberton said. "This is big
business."

Pemberton said the equipment found in a 3,800-square-foot Eastvale
house was easily worth $35,000. In that case, most of the equipment
came from outside Riverside County. But other larger-scale indoor
growers will go from store to store picking up a few pieces at a time
to avoid arousing suspicion, he said.

Pemberton said narcotics investigators do keep track of hydroponics
stores.

"It's not necessarily going to lead to charges against the stores," he
said, "but it might help lead us to who's buying" for illicit purposes.

Like head shops that sell the pipes and other accessories used to
smoke marijuana, hydroponics stores operate in something of a legal
gray area. Smoke shops can sell bongs and pipes, for instance, because
legally they aren't considered drug paraphernalia until they have been
used to smoke illegal drugs, Pemberton explained.

Sarah Pullen, a spokeswoman for the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration, said store owners can be prosecuted if they sell their
products knowing they will be used to grow marijuana.

"We would have to be able to prove knowledge and intent," she said.
"It's very difficult to say that someone in a store knows exactly."

In the past, when merchants ran afoul of the law, they were growing
marijuana for sale themselves or had ties to drug-dealing operations,
Pullen said.

Investigators can't make assumptions about what the customers of
hydroponics stores are doing with the equipment, Pemberton said. Nor
can they assume that the stores' owners know the marijuana growers
from the vegetable gardeners.

Sure, they aren't asking their customers a lot of questions, he said,
but that's no crime. After all, he said, the people running large
indoor marijuana nurseries get a lot of their materials at big-box
home-improvement stores too.

Chris Jackson, the owner of Green Mile Hydroponics in Colton, said he
and businessmen like him find themselves in a "catch-22" situation.

"When you talk about hydroponics, everyone thinks: illegal," he said.
"And it's not that way."