GROW OP SMALLER THAN FIRST BELIEVED

Seizure Still Ranks As Biggest Ever In City

WHEN they broke down the door on an inner-city warehouse last week,
city police thought they'd found the "Holy Grail" of marijuana grow
operations.

Yesterday, they admitted that while it is still the biggest ever found
in Winnipeg, the indoor grow operation is more of a holy coffee cup.

Drug unit Sgt. Danny Smyth said officers who spent the weekend taking
apart the hydroponic grow at an old warehouse on Ross Avenue near
Isabel Street cut down only 5,600 marijuana plants, not the 10,000
originally predicted last week.

Smyth said under a formula used by police, a mature marijuana plant is
worth an estimated $1,120 in street value. That means the total street
value of the pot seized by police is about $6.3 million, not the $11
million originally estimated by police last week.

Smyth said despite the change, the indoor grow is still the largest
one ever found in Winnipeg.

He said when officers first got inside the building last week, they
couldn't believe its size. It was the 101st grow operation found in
the city this year. Last year police found 108. "They said it was the
Holy Grail of grow operations in this city," he said.

That's because the marijuana plants were growing on two levels of the
20,000-square-foot building.

Police found plants in the basement and on the second floor. The main
floor was used mostly to store junk. A shotgun was also found.

Police say they believe $100,000 in growing equipment was being
used.

Smyth also said the building was unheated as the gas was shut off
months ago. What kept it warm was the heat given off by the dozens of
high-intensity lights used to grow the marijuana. "The hydro hadn't
been cheated," he said, explaining marijuana growers often hook up
wiring around a meter to avoid detection.

"Hydro's been estimating (the bill) for months now because they
couldn't get in," he said. "They've probably been underestimating."

Early yesterday police hauled the marijuana away in a rented five-ton
truck. The plants had been cut down and stuffed into 70 white garbage
bags.

Smyth said it would likely be destroyed within the next day once
police get approval from federal prosecutors. It will be buried at a
local dump.

He said police do not need the marijuana as court evidence, because
officers have already documented it through video and still
photographs.

He added there is also evidence the warehouse grow was in operation
for at least six months. Discarded growing material suggests the
growers harvested at least one crop of pot from the premises.

Smyth said police have made no arrests yet and have not spoken to the
building's owners.

Provincial documents list the building's owner as Kevin Saunders.
Saunders told the Free Press last week he was surprised by what police
found.

Saunders also said he has been renting the building out, but wouldn't
identify the tenants or what type of business he thought it was being
used for.