BRAZEN GROW-OP ARE GETTING TOUGHER TO DERAIL

If you think those guys who were harvesting marijuana in the old Molson
plant were brazen, or can't believe that there was a grow operation thriving
in eight apartments, between floors, in Parkdale, well, that's only the
beginning.

*Passengers on the Lakeshore GO line kept wondering why they could never get
into that car second from the end. Little did they, and GO officials,
realize that the double-decker passenger car had been converted into a
massive grow operation several months ago.

The way it started, evidently, was that several commuters who'd been riding
the same car together for years all got downsized about the same time, and
came up with the idea as a way to get through a tough financial period.
Because they'd met and gotten to know one another on the train, they thought
it made sense to operate their new business from it.

"And there was more to it than that,'' said police. "They felt they had a
better chance of escaping detection because their operation was always on
the move, unlike a home-based operation. They were never in any one place
for any length of time, except in the winter, when the switches kept
freezing, and then they might have been doing their cultivating in Long
Branch for the better part of an hour."

GO Transit officials said they had received a few complaints from passengers
saying they couldn't access the car in question, but most hadn't even
bothered to board it. It may have helped, police speculate, that the growers
had put notices on all doors to the car saying it was occupied entirely by
parents trying to help their kids sell chocolate bars for a school
fundraiser.

Police figure the marijuana growers had chosen this particular passenger
coach because the entire car had been transformed, through that special
shrink-wrap process that seals a train or a bus from one end to the other,
into a rolling billboard. This made it more difficult to look into the
windows. It was only when the ad was suddenly ordered peeled off Friday that
the operation was revealed. "If it hadn't been a promotion for the Mike
Bullard Show," police said, "they'd probably still be in business."

*Producers for The National thought some CBC executives just wanted a cozier
look for the set when they spotted an increasing number of plants crowding
the desk of anchor Peter Mansbridge.

"I hate to admit this," said one of the cameramen, "but I thought they were
just ferns. Promise me you won't tell anyone I told you that."

In this case, the two growers weren't even CBC employees, but folks off the
street who figured there'd be a lot of good lights on a TV news set to keep
their plants warm and thriving. They managed to get past security day after
day, claiming they were a couple of mob informers being interviewed for a
documentary, and that they had to hide behind lots of bushes to protect
their identity. As soon as the plants had grown to the right height, the two
said they'd be able to spill their guts.

"It seemed logical to us," said one producer. "Some of us even helped with
the watering, we were so eager to hear their tale."

*You'd think running a grow operation right on Yonge St. would be just
asking for trouble. Thousands of people walking by all day, maybe peering in
the window, perhaps the occasional police officer coming inside.

These guys were taking a huge risk, right? Turns out, they'd thought of
everything. They decided to hang a sign outside that would guarantee that no
one would ever knock or try to come inside and discover what they were up
to. The sign read: "Official Headquarters, Dalton McGuinty Fan Club."