Sophisticated Pot Farm Found In Building Near Topanga Station (Canoga Park)
I dunno about you, but if I was gonna start a huge marijuana growing operation I’d do it a little further from the police station. As many of you know, Topanga Station is the LAPD community station that services most of the west valley, including Woodland Hills. Note: The MyFoxLA video seems raw/unedited, and takes 10 seconds before they start to pan around the facility. [See This Article For Picture of Building Exterior]
Canoga Park – Los Angeles police today busted a sophisticated marijuana farm inside an industrial building 25 feet from the back door of the Topanga Community Police Station.
About a week ago, officers smelled marijuana coming from the building at 8411 Canoga Ave., just a few feet from the station at 21501 Schoenborn St., said Officer Karen Rayner of the LAPD’s Media Relations Section.
They notified the narcotics unit which started an investigation.
“They noticed that traffic in and out of the building was very minimal. The ventilation had also been upgraded. The utility bills were disproportionately higher. The rooms in the building were filled with hydroponics equipment,” Rayner said.
Rayner said the farmers had also “gone to great lengths to filter the air coming out of every hole that might leak to the outside.” She said that all the places where the smell might have come had been plugged with liquid caulking stuff.
“But it was not enough,” Rayner said. “Their luck ran out.”
Three suspects were still being booked so their names could not be released, Rayner said. The amount of marijuana in the building had not yet been tabulated.
A warrant was served in the building about 3 p.m. Detectives estimated the operation had been going on for about eight months, Rayner said.
The afternoon bust was made a week after an LAPD Gang Impact Team whiffed evidence coming from the building at at 8411 Canoga Ave.
“Our gang officers were in the parking lot. The air was still. The breeze was right. They could smell growing pot,” said Los Angeles police Lt. Stephen M. Carmona, commander of detectives at the Topanga station.
Not 25 feet from an 8-foot wall along the cop shop was an industrial warehouse that Carmona said contained 850 marijuana plants of different sizes.
The owner of the building was not implicated.
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5 Responses to “Sophisticated Pot Farm Found In Building Near Topanga Station (Canoga Park)”
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The building owner was not implicated? I don’t know about most landlords, but mine has someone at our complex, visiting every tenant, at least twice a month. Ostensibly to check if we need new lightbulbs or something, but I think their real agenda is to make sure none of us are up to no good. It IS problematic to hide the meth equipment on short notice.
Looks just like Season 2 of the grow house on the set of WEEDS.
I am a realtor in the west valley area. Within the last year I have come across with several homes while showing properties to my clients that were previously growing places and now they are going into foreclosure. The owners rented them out and had no idea who their tenants were. Most of them looked strange. The garage walls were covered with aluminum foil and lots of additional light fixtures were installed, loose wires all over the place. Some had buckling floors appear to have been from water damage. Strangely, several of them had security gates even in areas where security gates are very rare.
You would be surprised how many houses are in the area today, that were just recently purchased, look really nice on the outside, pretty landscaping, new paint, but you rarely see anyone coming or going. Only a car ones or twice a week. Your neighbor could be a farmer. What do you do? I would love to hear your opinion. How do you feel about this in your own backyard?