COVERT MEDICAL-MARIJUANA GROWING OPERATIONS SURFACE IN SUBURBAN HOMES

HIGHLANDS RANCH -- From the outside, Chris Bartkowicz's house looks
like most of the others in his Highlands Ranch neighborhood.

The interior is a different story.

Bartkowicz has built a large medical-marijuana growing operation in
the basement of his $637,000 suburban home, and he is far from alone.

9News discovered that dozens of suburban homes around Denver have been
converted to indoor medical-marijuana farms.

"Whether it's a small grow or a big grow, I don't think the average
person realizes how close to their front door it is," Bartkowicz said.

"I'm definitely hidden in suburbia," he said.

A jungle of electrical wires and water hoses snakes from room to room
in the home's basement, all supporting Bartkowicz's nearly $500,000
medical-marijuana operation.

This year, he is hoping for a record profit.

"I'd like to see somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000 " he said,
though he admits he could make as little as $100,000 depending on what
happens with proposed laws regarding medical marijuana.

For now, state law allows people to grow six plants per medical-
marijuana patient they serve. But changes contemplated in the
legislature could restrict the size of operations like Bartkowicz's,
or require a deeper relationship with patients than just being a pot
farmer.

Bartkowicz said he has grown for more than a year without his
neighbors finding out and without any criminal complications.

"If my neighbors don't know and no one else knows, how would I be a
target?" he said. "I want to be invisible."

Jefferson County resident Buffi Martynuska does not
agree.

"We don't need it, we don't want it," she told 9Wants to Know of the
marijuana-growing operation that once operated in the home next door
to her.

Headlines about break-ins at medical-marijuana dispensaries and the
Jan. 5 murder of a man selling medical marijuana in east Denver made
her worry that criminals would come to her neighborhood next, she said.

Martynuska warned other neighbors. Eventually the people living next
door voluntarily moved their operation elsewhere.

Crime is also what concerns Josh Stanley, who grows medical marijuana
in a downtown commercial building.

"When you are growing in a clandestine residential home, you have the
opportunity for thieves to target you," Stanley said.

He hired a security guard and runs digital cameras that he said beam
video off-site for additional security.

Maintaining a grow operation is costly.

Bartkowicz must route air from the home through a carbon filter to
remove the marijuana odor before pumping it outside. Lights and pumps
get expensive too. He showed 9Wants to Know his electric bill for two
months. He owed $3,694.92, a small price to pay for what he earns, he
said.

"I'm definitely living the dream now," he said.