Pot Club Criminals Strike Again

One crime that never fails to recur in the police log at least every couple of months is the medical marijuana dispensary break-in.

"There's money there and there's a lot of drugs there," Santa Cruz Sheriff's Deputy April Skalland . "If you go to the local TV store, you know you're going to have a bunch of TVs there. If you're going to go to the pot dispensary, you know there's going to be a bunch of marijuana there. I think it's just easy."

Fortunately, it wasn't too easy for a group of criminals who attempted to rob Santa Cruz Mountain Naturals in Aptos just after 11 p.m. Sunday night.

An employee of the dispensary was in the building on Soquel Drive near the Rio Del Mar exit when, according to Skalland, two or three subjects broke a window on the east side of the building and entered. 

The employee ran signaled an alarm to alert the sheriff's office and ran out the backdoor. When deputies arrives, the employee said he didn't know if the suspects were still inside.

"The deputies went into the building and didn't find anyone inside," Skalland said. "[The broken window] was determined to be the suspects' entry and exit point."

According to the Sheriff's Office, the suspects attempted to break into the room containing the marijuana but were unsuccessful. 

Over the past year, a trend has emerged showing that one pot club break-in often precedes another on the same night. However, Skalland did not know of any others that occured on Sunday.

For a comprehensive history of pot club crime over the past year, click here.