Police Bust Nearby Hashish Oil Processing Lab — Find Drugs, Guns and Money

Three people were arrested when authorities recovered drugs, cash, guns, ammunition and a display case from what they described as a hashish oil processing facility in Glendale Tuesday night.

The discovery came during a compliance check conducted by members of the AB 109 Task Force on a residence in the 1200 block of East Lexington Drive around 7:30 p.m., Glendale Police Department Sgt. Tom Lorenz said.

The check uncovered a large hashish oil processing lab, marijuana and marijuana plants, methamphetamine, an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle, handguns, ammunition and an undetermined amount of cash, Lorenz said.

"They were growing marijuana, they were processing it, they had a honey oil (hash oil, distilled from marijuana) lab set up, and they had a display case where people could buy it," Lorenz said.

The residence check was on a burglar, released early under the terms of Assembly Bill 109, a state law enacted to relieve the overcrowding of California prisons through the early release of inmates, Lorenz said.

Six members of the task force, composed of officers from the Los Angeles County Probation Department, and the San Fernando, Burbank and Glendale police departments, had called the Glendale department's narcotics unit after the initial discovery, Lorenz said.

The narcotics unit, in turn, called for assistance from the Los Angeles Inter-Agency Metropolitan Police Apprehension Crime Task Force to handle the hashish oil processing lab cleanup.

It was the second-such facility uncovered in Glendale in less than two weeks, Lorenz said.

A hash-oil processing lab was found in a raid in North Glendale on March 29, the Glendale News Press reported.

—City News Service