What would you do if of growing and dealing marijuana and illegally owning several guns? For several CARAG residents who had this happen at a rental house on their block last month, the answer was anything but concern for their safety.
"I worry about the homeowner," said Maiyou, a resident of the 3300 block of Girard Ave. "All the humidity [that results from growing many plants inside] will ruin the woodwork and the walls. To have to repair that damage before he rents it again will be hard."
Julie Cohen, a member of the CARAG community organization board, said she heard similar reactions from residents as she visited neighborhood block parties during Tuesday's National Night Out Against Crime.
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"One person I talked to said he was more worried that they [the accused growers] had pit bulls," she said, explaining that many children on the block were under age 5.
At the 33rd and Girard block party, a resident was overheard joking that he wished he'd known that his neighbors were growing marijuana—he would have asked them for some, he added.
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That's the kind of response Cohen and neighborhood Safety Organizer Zach Farley said they expected.
"They're doing something illegal," Farley said, "but if [the alleged drug dealers] are quiet, people don't really notice."
"Until a drug deal goes bad and shots get fired," Cohen replied.
Farley said the arrests, and particularly allegations that the two men arrested owned two pistols and possibly a shotgun, were "a bit of a surprise" to him.
"We mostly have crimes of opportunity" in CARAG, he said. "People sometimes leave a bike unlocked or a window open, and something gets stolen."
"As we've visited block parties, people seem to be more concerned with dangerous dogs and tracking down absentee landlords" than the specter of drug dealers, Farley added.
