[420 Girl]

HIGHLANDS RANCH, CO - They are hidden, yet thriving operations next door to hundreds of unsuspecting metro neighbors. 9Wants to Know discovered dozens of suburban homes turned into large medical marijuana growing operations. It is all legal under state law.

"Whether it's a small grow or a big grow, I don't think the average person realizes how close to their front door it is," said Chris Bartkowicz, who operates a large medical marijuana grow facility in the basement of his $637,000 Highlands Ranch home.

"I'm definitely hidden in suburbia," he said.

From the outside, his house looks like others on his street. His secret is in his 2,000 square foot basement.

A jungle of electrical wires and water hoses snakes from room to room, all supporting Bartkowicz's nearly $500,000 medical marijuana operation.

This year, he is hoping for record profits.

"I'd like to see somewhere in the vicinity of $400,000 [in profit,]" he said, though he admits he could make as little as $100,000 depending on what happens with proposed laws regarding medical marijuana.

Bartkowicz says he has grown for more than a year without his neighbors finding out and without any criminal complications.

"If my neighbors don't know and no one else knows, how would I be a target?" he said. "I want to be invisible."

Jefferson County resident Buffi Martynuska disagrees.

"We don't need it, we don't want it," she told 9Wants to Know after a different person grew medical marijuana next door to her. "In my backyard, you [couldn't] miss it."

Headlines about break-ins at medical marijuana dispensaries and the Jan. 5 murder of a man selling medical marijuana in East Denver made her worry criminals would come to her neighborhood next, she said.

Martynuska warned other neighbors. Eventually the people living next door to her voluntarily moved their operation elsewhere.

Crime is also what concerns Josh Stanley, who grows medical marijuana in a downtown commercial building.

"When you are growing in a clandestine residential home you have the opportunity for thieves to target you," Stanley said.

He hired a security guard and runs digital cameras that he says beam video offsite for additional security.

In Highlands Ranch, Bartkowicz says he has had no problems with crime. He believes his neighbors do not know about the plants growing in his basement.

"I've been going full steam since day one and I've never had a hiccup," he said.

Three rooms in his basement provide different amounts of light to plants. He works on a four-month growing cycle starting plants he calls "clones" by clipping off a leaf from a large plant.

"It's not as simple as putting some dirt in a room, putting some plants in it, throwing water on it and putting a light on top," he said.

Once clones root, they grow into plants 4 to 5 feet tall. It takes about 60 days for the plants to bloom - or grow buds that contain the ingredient THC. When harvested, the buds are smoked, mixed into butter for cooking or made into a liquid.

Bartkowicz got a medical marijuana license for himself after he said pain from scoliosis made it tough to get out of bed. Because he is listed as a caregiver for more than a dozen others, he is allowed to grow for them too. He says he never sells marijuana illegally.

"Why would I? Why would I want to risk my golden ticket," he asked.

The powerful smell of marijuana fills every room in his house.

To keep neighbors in the dark, Bartkowicz pumps old air through a maze of ducts into a 6-foot-tall carbon filter. It removes the odor before air is released back outside.

Maintaining the operation is costly.

Bartkowicz's showed 9Wants to Know his electric bill for two months. He owed $3,694.92, a small price to pay for what he earns, he said.

"I'm definitely living the dream now," he said.

Bartkowicz is only one of dozens of people in Colorado who use hidden medical marijuana gardens to grow more than a dozen plants.

With the help of law enforcement from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, the North Metro Drug Task Force, South Metro Drug Task Force and the Aurora Police Department, 9Wants to Know identified recent residential grow operations in cities and counties across the metro area


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