MarijuanaNews.com : Washington State Garden Store Under Nark Surveillance, As Predators Search For Marijuana Growers.

Posted March 15, 2000
(MarijuanaNews note: This is a great article that tells it like it
is. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer has generally given good coverage to the issue.)
See
Seattle
Post-Intelligencer Endorses Washington State Medical Marijuana Initiative
and
Seattle
Paper Gives Friendly Coverage To The Local Hempfest
March 14, 2000
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
editpage@seattle-pi.com
http://www.seattle-pi.com/
By Kristin Dizon kristindizon@seattle-pi.com

GARDEN STORE AND THE POT POLICE

Narc Squad Keeps Eye On Grow-Light Buyers, And
That Riles Owner

BELLEVUE — If you met Bob Cronk, you’d probably think the mild-mannered, soft spoken man
with deep blue eyes and a passion for all things horticultural was an accountant.

You’d be right.

You might see him as the kind of guy who runs for City Council.

Right again. Cronk ran last November, but got only 40 percent of the vote. That makes him
accustomed to a certain level of public scrutiny.

But Cronk runs a garden supply business that has been a target of
another kind of scrutiny — police surveillance.

Cronk’s Green Gardens store has become a magnet for the Eastside Narcotics Task Force,
which has made cases leading to more than 100 convictions for marijuana-related offenses
just by watching Cronk’s store and investigating his customers, according to an affidavit
from one recent case.

The task force is a joint effort by the Bellevue, Kirkland, Redmond and Mercer Island
police and sometimes includes a federal Drug Enforcement Agency representative. Last year
it seized more than $3.5 million in drugs and $1.3 million in assets, and in the past two
years has had a 100 percent conviction rate in cases involving search warrant execution,
said Marcia Harden, a Bellevue police spokeswoman.

The task force declined to say how many people have been followed from Cronk’s store, but
Harden said detectives aren’t camping out in the parking lot.

“They’re too busy just to sit there and follow people around,” she said.

“They (Green Gardens) specialize in hydroponics and that’s somewhat difficult to
find. . . . It just makes the detectives’ jobs easier to have a place like that, that
supplies equipment where there’s a decent chance they’re using it to do something
illegal.”

Brian Daggett, a Bellevue police officer and task force member, declined to be interviewed
in detail for this story, but said, “There are other stores that sell indoor grow
equipment, but I’m not sure how dirty the customers are.”

But Cronk, 45, said he feels harassed by officers who have been watching his business.

It is news to Cronk that his store — a small, plain shop in an industrial strip mall on
Bel-Red Road — may have a reputation as a popular place for pot cultivators.

Cronk said he doesn’t cultivate marijuana or associate with those who do.

About once a year someone inquires at the shop about growing cannabis and is promptly
asked to leave, he said.

“I don’t know anything about the drug culture,” he said. “We want to be
known as a place that has some of the best and most innovative products for gardening. We
don’t want to be known as the place for dope growing.”

He estimates his shop sees 500 to 1,000 customers every month, but he sells mostly
wholesale to retailers.

“People shopping here shouldn’t have to worry about having
their door broken down. People shouldn’t be suspects for buying garden supplies
here,” Cronk said. “It’s nobody’s damn business what you buy here, anymore than
what you walk out of the drugstore with.”

He says he doesn’t know what he can do about it, but he wonders why the task force is
focusing on his store when there are several within a half-mile radius that stock similar
wares.

Harden acknowledges that other nearby stores sell the same items, but Green Gardens
concentrates on hydroponics.

“For us the advantage is that’s all they sell,” she said.

Wearing a crisply pressed white shirt, black jeans and bright, scuff-free white tennis
shoes, Cronk’s voice takes on a reverent, ministerial tone when he extols the virtues of
hydroponic, or dirt-free, growing.

Hydroponic gardening is faster, more efficient and produces better flavors in produce,
Cronk said. He knows that some of the same equipment — high-watt lights, odor-cleansing
ozonators and metal light hoods to direct heat downward, among other items — are also
commonly used to grow marijuana.

But they’re all legal products with legitimate purposes, he and
others say. And they want to know why Green Gardens is under the microscope.

“He’s in their neighborhood, so it’s easy for them,” said Jeff Steinborn, a
local lawyer who largely represents clients who face marijuana charges. “That is the
only store I have seen busts come out of.”
(MarijuanaNews note: Steinborn is a member of the NORML Legal
Committee and one of the most respected marijuana lawyers in the country.)
Attorney Bob Leen once represented a client who was nabbed after being followed from Green
Gardens.

“The police are engaging in something that I’d call
targeting,” Leen said. “The police have no prior suspicion of them (the
customers). They’re saying that the fact that people go to this store is enough to justify
checking them out.”

Sheila Weirth, a King County deputy prosecuting attorney assigned to the task force
full-time, said following people home is a common tactic.

“(Police) don’t have to have probable cause to start following anyone. What you do is
exposed to the public — the police can watch that,” she said.

Detectives then develop further evidence of marijuana growing by
checking near the residence for the strong, distinct odor of the plant and finding out if
electric bills are much higher than average — an indication that high-watt grow lights
are in use.

“You could be growing tomatoes or orchids with these, but we’ve never found
that,” Weirth said.

But people like Judy LaPlante say police aren’t always right.

LaPlante, a regular Green Gardens customer who lives just outside of Bellevue, said she
recently saw a King County Sheriff’s car cruising back and forth in front of her house.
The avid gardener suspects the officer was interested in the 1,000-watt bulb in her
greenhouse, where she raises flowers and keeps a turtle tank warm.

“I like to build things. If I go out to Eagle Hardware, is somebody going to follow
me and see if I have legal permits to build something?” LaPlante said. “Where do
you draw the line?”

Cronk wonders the same thing.

“If we outlaw anything with a possible illegal use, then we’d
have to outlaw everything,” he said. “This is like trying to stop poaching by
controlling the sale of fishing supplies.”