Landlord evicted tenants and then took over their cannabis growhouse

MAN MADE CARPENTER AN OFFER HE COULDN’T REFUSE

A 48 year old North Corkman has been given an opportunity to come up with €5,000 for donation to charity or face going to jail after he was caught running a cannabis growhouse that he took over when he evicted some Eastern Europeans who had set up the operation on his property.

Carpenter John Sheahan pleaded guilty when he was arraigned at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to both possessing cannabis for sale or supply and to cultivating cannabis without a licence at his home at Ardglass, Charleville, on October 23, 2019.

Det Garda Will Hosford of Mallow Garda Station told the court how gardai carried out a search of Sheahan’s house and found a sophisticated cannabis growhouse with lights and a watering system set up in a shipping container in his back yard.

Gardai found 23 mature cannabis plants with a street value of €18,400 in the container while they also found 253 grammes of cannabis herb with a street value of €5,066, giving a total value for the seizure of €23,466, said Det Garda Hosford.

Sheahan was at work at the time but gardai rang him on his mobile and he returned to Ardglass and, during interview, he made full admissions and accepted responsibility for the growhouse, which was set up in three separate rooms in the container with the third room containing the mature plants.

Det Garda Hosford said that Sheahan told them that he had rented out the house to some Polish tenants only to discover that they had set up a growhouse operation in the container. When he discovered this he evicted the Poles and burned the 33 plants that they had cultivated.

However, some time after this he was approached by a man who offered him €5,000 to resume the growing operation and produce a crop, and because he was under financial pressure at the time he accepted the offer and began growing another crop of plants.

Sheahan told gardai that the crop seized by gardai was his second harvest and that he had already made €5,000 from his first crop, said Det Garda Hosford, adding Sheahan was a cannabis user but he had undergone tests in December and January which showed he was now cannabis free.

Defence counsel Alice Fawsitt SC said that Sheahan had co-operated fully with gardai in their investigation and made full admissions about how he set up the operation and he went through the entire growing process with gardai when interviewed.

Judge Sean Ó Donnabháin said to hear Sheahan had evicted his tenants for growing cannabis only to get into the business himself was perplexing. “Was it the way he objected to Foreign Direct Investment? He throws out the developer and then takes over the business himself.”

The judge said that the court could not permit Sheahan to make a €5,000 profit from his first crop and he adjourned the matter until April 16th to allow him come up with €5,000 to offer to charity while warning him that, even then, he would not avoid a conviction.