The San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department is working with federal officers to seize illegal grows dotting the horizon, which are allegedly operated by cartels of criminals that unlawfully pump water out of fire hydrants and drill water wells into the ground to cultivate unregulated crops of marijuana.
“The DEA is assisting with our Operation Hammerstrike,” said Lieutenant Marc Bracco from the Special Operations Bureau of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. “By mid-to-late September, they will be out on operations with us. They've already been back and forth dealing with the U.S. Attorney's office trying to find ways for us to seize property and equipment.”
San Bernardino County has some 1,285 illegal grows within its jurisdiction that it is challenged with because state law limits the prosecution of those who are caught operating the greenhouses.
“When we shut down actual cultivation facilities, we can't take anything that is being used to grow marijuana,” Bracco told the Southern California Record. “We can only take the plant but the partnership with the feds will allow us to take the equipment and any of the businesses that are supplying equipment, rental equipment, U-Haul trucks, and generators that are there. That's why it's a multi-jurisdictional effort where the feds are going to have their sight on taking the equipment while we're taking the plants as evidence.”
Without federal involvement, San Bernadino sheriffs can only charge offenders with a misdemeanor.
“We have predominantly Chinese and Mexican nationals running the grow sights in our county and that’s going to continue to multiply, which is a terrible crime and hard to prove because these people don't want to talk to us,” Bracco said. “The Chinese nationals are smuggled in through the ports in containers. We've had a couple of them admit that and they've all been coached that it’s just a minor misdemeanor, take your citation and you'll be fine.”
On Aug. 16, Sheriff Shannon Dicus posted a letter on Twitter that he sent to legislators asking for harsher punishments for people operating illegal cannabis cultivation grows because, without an upgraded law, Bracco foresees that the illegal market will continue flooding legalized cannabis sales at dispensaries.
“Dispensaries have to have knowledge of it because there are not enough commercial legal commercial sites out there to handle the supply that's going to dispensaries,” he said. “Your local law enforcement doesn't want to deal with dispensary investigations or licensing checks. We have to handle all the other crimes that are going on in the area. That's where the California Bureau of Cannabis Control can be an asset but it comes down to having personnel and funding to cover that.”