No Shopping At Local Hydro Stores in TAMPA

[socbutter]

Just for FYI do not go shopping at Hydro shops or head shops in the TAMPA area. Do your shopping thru the mail and increase your electric usage in advance of starting your grow.

Law enforcements are taking licenses and checking electric usage.

WARNING be careful out there.

Peace.

 

[FreedomFGHTR]

Oh man... I should move to Florida and do a 12k Tomato and Pepper grow. Purposely get myself raided and then laugh my ass off at the pigs. Cause once they leave the tomotoes would get harvested!

 

[MickFoster]

Just for FYI do not go shopping at Hydro shops or head shops in the TAMPA area. Do your shopping thru the mail and increase your electric usage in advance of starting your grow.

Law enforcements are taking licenses and checking electric usage.

WARNING be careful out there.

Peace.

Where exactly did you obtain your information?

 

[Lazyman]

Yep, please cite the source or sources...

 

[SmokyMtnToker]

You are not going to find a printed form thats says: ' Officers are investigating grow stores to catch growers' laying around. Obviousluy info like this comes from one of two places; Either the Op is deranged and so lonley that he resorts to fantasy just for jollies....OR, he has seen or heard from a source close to LEO's that this is happening.

Caution is a lot better than regret. I would rather take an anonymous warning without a verifiable source and be safe than to disregard everything I cannot verify in detail and end up busted. Assume what is safest. That makes sense. If the Op could reveal how he knows it might be trouble for the source and end up ruining a way to get info...so discretion is mandatory in these type things....want to disregard it? Go ahead.

But those who are cautious and value their freedom and grows should take heed and not play Doubting Thomas ...even if sources canot be revealed. I trust members here until they prove to be idiots, and so far I have not seen anything that tells me that this is the case here. Give a brother a break and believe until disproven...thats safest.

 

[socbutter]

You are not going to find a printed form thats says: ' Officers are investigating grow stores to catch growers' laying around. Obviousluy info like this comes from one of two places; Either the Op is deranged and so lonley that he resorts to fantasy just for jollies....OR, he has seen or heard from a source close to LEO's that this is happening.

Caution is a lot better than regret. I would rather take an anonymous warning without a verifiable source and be safe than to disregard everything I cannot verify in detail and end up busted. Assume what is safest. That makes sense. If the Op could reveal how he knows it might be trouble for the source and end up ruining a way to get info...so discretion is mandatory in these type things....want to disregard it? Go ahead.

But those who are cautious and value their freedom and grows should take heed and not play Doubting Thomas ...even if sources canot be revealed. I trust members here until they prove to be idiots, and so far I have not seen anything that tells me that this is the case here. Give a brother a break and believe until disproven...thats safest.

Thank you

 

[JJScorpio]

I think it's safe to say that one needs to be careful anytime they use a hydro shop. But if you're going to target a group as "unsafe" and tell people "not to use them", then I think you should at the least give a reason why.

 

[dexter840]

it's not just tampa it's the whole damn state of florida like this

 

[SmokyMtnToker]

I cannot speak for the OP, but the reason WHY he is relating this is to save people from getting busted...thats plain as day. What other motivation would one have?

Just assume that he has it on reliable info that cops are taking plate numbers and investigating grow stores actively at this time; avoid these places OR make sure that any vehicles used to transport equipment cannot be linked to a grow....borrow a car from a source that would notrelate any info to a cop under any circumstances....hard to find in this day and age....but at least a cold lead is the best thing to throw to a stinking narc...so play it safe.

The internet is best but can also lead to problems if unlucky or careless...but overall your exposure is less with the internet than in public. If you need emergency supplies and must go to a local grow store, spend the money on a cab and get picked up away from the grow location and get dropped off at a different location , also away from the grow area. Walking for a few minutes could save you, and the extra cost pales in comparison to losing your whole investment.

Sometimes we get complacent and forget that we are the UNDERGROUND to the cops and CRIMINALS IN THEIR EYES. We must at all times behave as if we were the target of an active investigation; slip up ONCE and thats all it takes to get the pigs sniffing. It may seem' papranoid' to take extensive precautions, but ask anyone doing time for drugs if they would be more careful had they the ability to do it all over again...they will say YES!!

What usually ends up getting people busted? Two things: Close friends, especially women friends ( hell hath no fury such as that of a scorned woman) snitching for personal reasons..revenge, etc... OR, some little thing that got the cops attention...like a license plate number...windows always closed...electric bill spikes..anything at all can lead to a bust...but MOST of the time it is because of some unrelated event that leads to the grow.

So caution is better than sorrow, and those who would risk losing it all should think twice: There is a vast and well funded army trying to hunt us down and ruin us and our families lives. They are trained, vicious and immoral. They play fast and loose with the rules and the law, and they kill and maim for the slightest perceived reaction to their infamous actions. it is serious business, even if you are a medical grower, or casual grower..take it serious or get bitten in the ass.

 

[jescowhite]

I would not be surprised to hear tampa cops are writing down plates and pulling electrical records. It's like sitting in a deer stand with a bag of corn 50 ft away from you.

 

[Guest 18340]

Just for FYI do not go shopping at Hydro shops or head shops in the TAMPA area. Do your shopping thru the mail and increase your electric usage in advance of starting your grow.

Law enforcements are taking licenses and checking electric usage.

WARNING be careful out there.

Peace.

He is 100% correct. Theirs a news article about it. If memory serves me right, it started because one piece of shit no good for nothing loser cop kept noticing the same pick up truck come to a particular hydro shop and park out back every day. He took the plate# down, found out who the guy was, followed him for a few days until the guy went to a storage place. They checked the electrical usage on his unit (of coarse it was ridiculously high) and saw 2 AC's blasting away and (so they say)smelled it. He got popped and I believe someone else was growing in another unit.
True story.
I'll post it up when I find the article.
I'm interested to see the outcome of this case.
Let me go try to find it...

 

[Guest 18340]

A Pinellas County narcotics detective kept seeing the same black Ford F-150 pickup truck parked behind Simply Hydroponics, a business that sells grow lights, nutrients and other products designed for indoor agriculture.

The detective saw the truck five times between Jan. 6 and Feb. 19, according to court documents released last week, and that got the detective thinking. He checked to see who that truck belonged to, and where the driver might have set up an account with Progress Energy Corp. for electricity.

This is how the Pinellas sheriff's narcotics squad was led to a string of warehouses behind a U.S. 19 strip plaza this month. There they found 460 marijuana plants and more than $12,000 in cash, the court documents say.

Allan Bednar, co-owner of Simply Hydroponics, was taken aback when he heard Tuesday that detectives identified a suspect by jotting down the license tag of a truck presumably driven by one of his customers.

"If they don't have anything better to do, there's not much I can do about it," Bednar said. "I'm surprised … it seems there are more problems around of a more serious nature."

Bednar wondered aloud whether the sheriff's office was exposing itself to potential lawsuits though the surveillance technique. "We're a gardening supply store," Bednar said. It caters to professors, students and teachers, as well as homeowners, and if detectives begin showing up at their doors, it could be considered harassment, he said.

The F-150 was registered to the man investigators initially believed was running the marijuana grow operation at the warehouses, the documents say. He is identified in the documents as Stephen E. Sweetwood, 51, of Seminole, the court records say.

The warehouses – located behind the Four Seasons Plaza, 39070 U.S. 19 N., Palm Harbor – were raided March 9 after sheriff's narcotics investigators obtained a search warrant.

That day, authorities said a man had been taken into custody and was cooperating with them. They would not identify the man then and they are not doing so now. Pinellas sheriff's spokeswoman Cecilia Barreda said Tuesday that no arrests have been made in the case, and the investigation is ongoing.

According to the affidavit accompanying the search warrant, however, the focus of the investigation, at least before the search, was Sweetwood.

Sweetwood became a target after his truck was spotted repeatedly at Simply Hydroponics at 7949 Ulmerton Road in Largo, the court records say. Investigators then looked to see where a power bill might be in Sweetwood's name, and they were told by Progress Energy Corp. that Sweetwood had an account for one of the warehouses behind the plaza, the affidavit says.

When the narcotics detective and another detective went to the warehouse complex, they found five air conditioners mounted to an outside wall that were in operation the entire time the detectives were there, with a generated temperature of 44 degrees. They also smelled marijuana coming from the exhaust of four of the five air conditioning units, but the smell of marijuana was evident no where else outside, the affidavit says.

Detectives then found the four warehouse units that were emitting the smell of marijuana were not in Sweetwood's name, but rather in the name of Jeffrey G. McCubbins, 46, of Hudson, the affidavit says. The one air conditioning unit that was in Sweetwood's name was not emitting the smell of marijuana, the affidavit says.

The three warehouses for which detectives obtained their search warrant – and which were using inordinate amounts of power – had accounts for electricity in McCubbins' name, the affidavit says, and McCubbins had previously been suspected of distributing marijuana. Still, detectives noted that Sweetwood had access to one of the three warehouses, and he is "involved in the cultivation of marijuana within said warehouses," the affidavit says.

Efforts to reach Sweetwood and McCubbins were unsuccessful. Neither man has a listed telephone number.

 

[Agent-Smith]

Yeah, there was a thread on this site with that newspaper article about a month or so ago. I even posted in it.

 

[Harvest]

heard of law enforcement doing this in arizona too.

 

[Agent-Smith]

Here's the link http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=115507

 

[Danks2005]

how could the smell of mj come out of the condenser? I hate the fact that a cop can smell mj and call prob cause. They can lie everytime. They want us to follow the law but they don't have to. If they say they smelled pot, and you prove to the court that no smell could leave the grow room, could you beat the charge, by improper search and seizure? Just curious

 

[movingtocally]

I'm all about repetition, but I think JJ's got it right. We use a very specific set of tools for our craft. The literal majority of hydroshop business is for marijuana growers. How unbelievably retarded would a local PD have to be to not watch these places like a hawk? The only way every single hydro shop in the country is not being watched is if the local PD has been told in no uncertain terms to not bother staking out pot growers. Everyone else should assume that their shop is being watched. If not by standing operational units, then by single patrolmen doing a little side work for easy ratchets on his felony racket.

Put yourself in the shoes of a cop. I bet I could watch a hydro store for a week and have very solid evidence of a crime, good enough for a warrant these days, on half a dozen or more sloppy growers. It's easy as pie.

 

[HeadyPete]

It's bullshit. With an AC unit, the hot outside air stays outside and the cool inside air stays inside. Two separate sections of the unit. Another lying scumbag "Officer of the Law"...

 

[smokinshogun]

-

 

[PassionForMaryJ]

how could the smell of mj come out of the condenser? I hate the fact that a cop can smell mj and call prob cause. They can lie everytime. They want us to follow the law but they don't have to. If they say they smelled pot, and you prove to the court that no smell could leave the grow room, could you beat the charge, by improper search and seizure? Just curious

It can't in my experiences, they just abuse their so called power to get what they need to jail another grower.
I doubt you will ever be able to prove said smell did not come through the A/C if you get busted with plants...

I actually had something happen to a buddy years back where the cops lied to search us, they said they smelled weed in our car, but the funny thing is no weed was smoked in the car for a week, it had just been fully detailed, and smelled of ozium...
Other funny thing is one officer busted the other out, he said the guy sitting there talking to us made us look suspicious, lol
Cops found joints on him, and charged him, I asked how they could get by doing an illegal search & seizure, they told me to be quiet or we'd both go to jail, lmao