Police Stumble on Grow House, Probing Legality

Watsonville police found about 300 marijuana plants in a Cypress Street house while trying to thwart a burglary Wednesday and, now, further investigation has shown the plants may be legal, police Sgt. Saul Gonzalez said Thursday.

Officers were called to a residential burglary in progress on the 700 block of the street, which is near the Vista Montaña complex. They saw two young men jumping a fence on the west side of the property and gave chase, Gonzalez said.

The cops lost sight of the would-be burglars but spotted a broken window on the home and peered inside. That's when the saw the elaborate marijuana grow set-up.

Gonzalez said the marijuana was probably what the burglars were targeting.

"Most likely, they probably were aware there was a grow," he said.

Watsonville police called in the county's Anti-Crime Team, a task force that handles large-scale drug investigations, to take the case.

"We handed it over to SCCACT so they only thing we took was photographs," Gonzalez said.

So far, no marijuana has been seized from the house. Gonzalez said it's possible the grow as in compliance with local and state law, and that nothing will be seized.

The investigation is ongoing.

Earlier this month, the Monterey County Sheriff's Office busted and arrested one man. Santa Cruz sheriff's deputies arrested two men and seized 130 pounds of marijuana and $67,000 in cash during in November.