Big Berry Creek bust

Last week the Butte County Sheriff’s Office served a search warrant on a Berry Creek residence on Simmons Road that resulted in the discovery of 81 marijuana plants in the back yard, an indoor growing room, a 9 mm handgun and 94 pounds of processed pot.

According to a press release, the warrant was issued after deputies conducted searches at homes on Chico’s Keefer Road and another in Berry Creek on Bald Rock Road.

During the earlier raids a man named David Najera was arrested on felony charges of cultivation and sale of marijuana. At the Simmons Road raid deputies found an empty residence but reported food in the oven and the home in disarray.

Deputies believe the home, as with the two raided earlier in the week, “was being used to cultivate marijuana for the purposes of sales under the guise of Proposition 215.”

In related news, four U.S. attorneys in California announced Friday (Oct. 7) they intended to crack down on marijuana dispensaries in California, a reversal of their hands-off policy announced in 2009.