How Much Pot Is Enough (To Get Your Kids Taken Away From You)?
Categories: Pot Culture
Miraloma Park couple Jon and Yan Ling Rahoi lost more than their freedom and their (sizeable) marijuana stash when the SFPD busted an illegal grow operation at their Cresta Vista Drive home earlier this week. According to the SFPD, the couple was charged with felony child endangerment along with their horticulturally-related crimes, and their "three children under the age of eight" are now under the care of relatives while the Rahois await trial.
SFPD says that over 5,900 "mature" plants were seized during the Sunday bust, which included raids at another home on the city's west side as well as a Potrero Hill warehouse. (SFPD estimated the marijuana's street value at $200,000, or about $33 per plant. Which is either an awfully low estimate or awfully poor growership on the Rahoi's part, but we digress). The Rahois didn't have medical marijuana recommendations; even if they did, they were somewhat above the legal limit of 24 plants per patient. But it wasn't that, nor was it using their children's precious tiny little fingers to trim buds, plant clones into the earth, or even installing grow lights in a playroom that earned the Rahois the "negligent parents" label: it was how they chose to power their operation.
Because, you see, the Rahois did what most illicit pot growers do: they jumped their home's utility box in order to both hide the egregious amount of energy a pot grow requires and to steal some extra juice from the power lines outside. All that extra voltage on wires not designed to handle it creates a fire hazard, and having kids in a fire hazard is, well, against the law.
"If someone is letting their children reside in an unsafe home, whether or not marijuana is involved, that's a crime," police spokesman Officer Boaz Marales told SF Weekly. Had the box not been jumped, the endangerment charge wouldn't have been included, and if the Rahois had recommendations, "no arrests would have been made," he added.
So there you have it: kids can roam free in a marijuana field, just as long as said marijuana field isn't a tinderbox waiting to go off. Or something.
Follow us on Twitter at @sfweekly.
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| Photo via sillydog |
SFPD says that over 5,900 "mature" plants were seized during the Sunday bust, which included raids at another home on the city's west side as well as a Potrero Hill warehouse. (SFPD estimated the marijuana's street value at $200,000, or about $33 per plant. Which is either an awfully low estimate or awfully poor growership on the Rahoi's part, but we digress). The Rahois didn't have medical marijuana recommendations; even if they did, they were somewhat above the legal limit of 24 plants per patient. But it wasn't that, nor was it using their children's precious tiny little fingers to trim buds, plant clones into the earth, or even installing grow lights in a playroom that earned the Rahois the "negligent parents" label: it was how they chose to power their operation.
Because, you see, the Rahois did what most illicit pot growers do: they jumped their home's utility box in order to both hide the egregious amount of energy a pot grow requires and to steal some extra juice from the power lines outside. All that extra voltage on wires not designed to handle it creates a fire hazard, and having kids in a fire hazard is, well, against the law.
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| Photo via Ian B-M |
"If someone is letting their children reside in an unsafe home, whether or not marijuana is involved, that's a crime," police spokesman Officer Boaz Marales told SF Weekly. Had the box not been jumped, the endangerment charge wouldn't have been included, and if the Rahois had recommendations, "no arrests would have been made," he added.
So there you have it: kids can roam free in a marijuana field, just as long as said marijuana field isn't a tinderbox waiting to go off. Or something.
Follow us on Twitter at @sfweekly.
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