Visiting an Old, Gross Marijuana Grow
Littered in the Remote Figueroa Mountain Foothills Are Remnants of a Lucrative and Dangerous Business
On September 20, 2013, Joel Lopez and Cipriano Torres were about to begin another day of harvesting their secret cannabis crop on a Santa Barbara hillside. It was a half-hour before sunrise, and the meandering field carved into a steep Happy Canyon slope was inky and cool; the men hunkered down among the scrub oak and chaparral.
Above them, a team of Sheriff’s detectives and Forest Service officers kept watch, and as the wind started to gust up the hill, they let loose their dogs. After a short and frantic chase, Lopez and Torres were arrested. Two rifles were recovered nearby. The team also seized 100 pounds of processed marijuana worth $250,000, and they estimated the site contained as many as 1,600 plants at one point.
Two weeks earlier, a deer hunter scouting the area had spotted a man in camouflage looking over his shoulder and covering his tracks as he walked along a nearby trail. The hunter contacted authorities, who pinpointed the grow before the early morning raid. Lopez, 28, and Torres, 38, would each plead no contest to felony marijuana cultivation and gun charges, and they were sentenced to 120 days in jail and five years of probation. Both have since been deported.
