Cops Release HortiPharm Arrest and Seizure Details

Following last Friday’s raid of the HortiPharm Caregivers medical marijuana dispensary on upper State Street — as well as busts at a number of residences and other locations — Santa Barbara police have finally released information about what exactly was booked into evidence during the operation.

According to police spokesperson Lt. Paul McCaffrey — whose department was the lead agency in the investigation — detectives seized 32 pounds of cut, dried, and processed marijuana; 2.23 pounds of hash; 500 mature marijuana plants, averaging four feet in height; 120 immature plants, averaging 12-18 inches in height; and more than $90,000 in cash. Numerous bank accounts have also been seized, said McCaffrey, but police have not yet begun the process of sifting through those.

McCaffrey also reported that two of the houses searched — one at 5423 Santa Rita Road in Lompoc, the other on Almond Avenue in Santa Barbara — were allegedly being used as indoor grow operations. The owners had purportedly installed sophisticated irrigation, lighting, and venting systems that kept the grows’ odors contained to the houses.

The owner of the Almond Avenue house, said McCaffrey, had rerouted the main electrical line from a nearby power pole directly to the residence, bypassing the meter. Because of the large amount of equipment inside running 24 hours a day, McCaffrey estimates that “several thousand dollars of electricity was being stolen from the electric company.”

While most of the people in custody were apprehended at their residences, Joshua and Dayli Braun were tracked to and arrested at the Bacara Resort & Spa in Goleta.