Criminals target empty shops and pubs in once-busy town centres to grow cannabis, say police.

Organised crime groups have been targeting empty shops and pubs in town centres to grow cannabis on an industrial scale, say police bosses.

Over the last year, raids have been carried out in dozens of properties, from an old toy shop in Ayr, Scotland, to a former bank in Welshpool, Powys.

Vacant restaurants, cafes, nightclubs, bingo halls and office buildings have all been used to grow the drug, according to the National Police Chiefs’ Council.

In Newport, south Wales, criminals used several floors of a former department store on the main shopping street to grow more than 3,000 cannabis plants.

  • @breadsmasherEnglish
    13•1 month ago

    High street shops (in my town) are closing down and not opening because the private landlords who own the properties are asking for extortionate rent, and then never fixing anything.

    Multiple stores have shut down due to flooding/burst pipes ruining stock and the landlord refusing to repair it for the future. So the shop owners move elsewhere.

  • @[email protected]English
    10•1 month ago

    I much prefer cannabis growers to landlords who have empty buildings, destroying high streets but still refusing to lower rents.

    (Also, fuck landlords in general :) )

  • @Muteman30English
    6•1 month ago

    Near me in Cullompton, a gang was growing it in an abandoned school. Funny as fuck.

  • @[email protected]English
    5•1 month ago

    Jesus I forget the shits still illegal in other places, hanging out over here in my blue state.

    Another reason to never visit TERF Island I guess, lmao.

  • @[email protected]English
    5•1 month ago

    Eventually they’ll legalise it (probably within a decade, what with Germany having legalised it this year and all, though probably not in Starmer’s first term) and growers will be able to do so on more efficient sites than boarded-up pubs.