Marijuana grow house found in Markleeville, 3 men arrested
Three Markleeville men are accused of growing marijuana at a barn in Alpine County.
“The barn contained two downstairs grow rooms. One room was complete with lights, timers, humidity monitors, fans, a carbon dioxide enrichment system and filtered external ventilation. There was even air conditioning installed and operating in the one grow room that was finished,” Alpine County sheriff’s deputies said in a press release of the Markleeville grow house. “The other room was nearly finished with all of the equipment new and in boxes, ready to be installed. The upstairs of the barn had younger plants growing with three tubs converted to producing hydroponic starter clones. A smaller grow was found in one of the rooms of the residence.”
John Borchard, 23, Stephen Seiller, 25, and Justin Jones, 35, were all taken into custody Oct. 13 on a variety of drug charges.
Deputies said of the house on Spring Canyon Drive in Markleeville that it was one of the most “sophisticated marijuana grows ever found in Alpine County.”
Deputies seized 312 marijuana plants, along with miscellaneous drug paraphernalia and thousands of dollars of growing equipment.
— Lake Tahoe News staff report
Complete waste of time and resources.
Not surprising find. I live in Meyers…can point out 5 home grows within the block. All rentals…therefore, pretty sure the owners have no idea of the damage to their house, or they do not care as long as they get the rent.
Frankly, I don’t care if you slam battery acid in your home, but do not make me smell your “venting” every other day! Smells like a dead skunk…of which we have none in Tahoe!!! I try to sell my home…the potential buyer asks where the awful smell comes from…what do I say?
The blight and downfall of Tahoe? 1: the City Council/founding fathers failed to recreate the city more than 15+ years ago…when things began to circle the toilet. 2: Not merging appropriate and fiscal agencies. ie: the only reason that the city and county fire departments will not merge is because…the county residents pay a CalFire “tax”. If the city and county merge, then every parcel in the city will also be required to pay the same-how would that go over?
Shame on SLT wake up and smell the Yuban!
I say this all the time: It not very difficult to filter the air properly and be a good neighbor. Leave an anonymous non-threatening letter in the mailbox.
It is in all growers best interest to stop the smell and clean up when you’re done. A few bad apples spill water and stink up the block.
Marijuana is not going to go away, might as well figure out how to mitigate the impacts.
Such as these people. Who were using a barn. The police said it was very sophisticated. Make that the standard. I bet that their wiring was safer than the majority of the antiquated houses in SLT. I never trusted my house’s wiring to handle a space heater. I bet those people ran heavy gauge romex in conduit with a fresh breaker box. Note: I have no first hand experience in any of this, but I’ve been around long enough to know people who have done it right.
The law should recognize these people as good examples of how to do it. This is assuming they are nice people, as most growers are, who are nonviolent.
But no one writes articles praising the kind people who do it the right way.
I hope the prosecution makes a mistake and these people move on unscathed (assuming they are nice people).
On a related note check out the movie ‘Square Grouper’ on Netflix.
Legalize it. I sympathize with neighbors who suffer bad smells or other annoying neighborhood habits, like music that’s too loud or barking dogs. But we have the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world, and I agree with the Libertarians on this one. We’d save a lot of money by clearing out the pot offenders from jail. We’d eliminate the dangerous booby-trapped grows in the woods. And we could tax the hell out of it as we do with alcohol. The criminalization of pot is a cultural bias we need to outgrow.
Eric Jung, Bear Valley