Bradley pot bust may be blueprint for county marijuana enforcement.

There were generators running at night, bright lights and seemingly constant noise. That’s what neighbors near a marijuana grow in Bradley reported when they lodged complaints with the sheriff’s office.

Deputies checked it out, and served a warrant on the South County grow on April 25. They photographed some 2,500 immature marijuana plants in hoop houses. They seized 0.3 grams of methamphetamine and 0.2 grams of heroin, 24 guns including an assault rifle, and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Three people were arrested on charges unrelated to marijuana cultivation, such as being a felon in possession of a firearm.

Deputies left the plants behind, because the investigation into whether the grow was legal or not is still underway. “There was no paperwork supporting that the marijuana cultivation at the present site was legal,” Sheriff’s Office Cmdr. John Thornburg says. But attorney Jennifer Rosenthal Iverson, who is representing the growers, says she has subsequently produced paperwork proving her clients are a legal collective.

As Monterey County officials hash out an ordinance for medical marijuana, they also need to develop an enforcement strategy. The April 25 bust was different than other drug investigations in a few ways, and it might serve as a blueprint for what the county does going forward.

Instead of serving a search warrant to investigate alleged criminal activity, the sheriff’s office served an administrative warrant. It’s a technical difference, but instead of probable cause, the agency needs to show “reasonable suspicion” to get a judge’s approval – it’s a lower threshold of suspicion.

Besides the sheriff’s deputies, inspectors from the county Resource Management Agency and the Health Department also showed up to investigate allegations of illegal grading and potential environmental violations.

“This was complaint-driven, but in this new scheme we’re talking about, what would [enforcement] look like?” says Chief Assistant District Attorney Berkley Brannon. “The thinking was, we’ll do an administrative warrant, take a look, get a sense of what it would take to enforce an ordinance. You’ve got a lot of different folks that would have to be coordinated to do a search, and it’s always going to involve a search. This was a way of seeing what we’d be looking at in terms of manpower, resources, that kind of thing.”

Brannon expects that after the County Board of Supervisors approves an ordinance, as early as this summer, he’ll hash out a proposal for additional enforcement powers, perhaps dedicated investigators. “If you’re going to have regulations for a multimillion-dollar industry that at some point could dwarf grape growing in this county, it’s going to require some enforcement,” he says.

To cannabis advocates, like Monterey County NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), that sounds like an exceedingly strong reaction. It’s shaken growers who, like the targets of the April 25 search, claim they’re operating as legal collectives.

“[The county] already has the resources they need to enforce this, and it really should be through the ag commissioner,” Executive Director Ryan Munevar says. “Unless they’re afraid it’s a cartel, a grow with guns, then of course you bring [law enforcement].”