Simon Gillan (37) ran a legitimate car-painting business from his Mosgiel home but there was an illegal secret worth up to $50,000 behind the scenes, the Dunedin District Court heard this week.
In May 2020, police heard the defendant was selling cannabis and their suspicions were confirmed by intercepted phone messages.
In a two-week period just after the country’s Alert Level 4 lockdown, Gillan sold $1100 of the class-C drug and offered $200 more.
Bush cannabis cost $400 an ounce, while indoor-grown went for $450.
On September 7, police raided the Factory Rd address.
Judge Emma Smith called it “a sophisticated cultivation operation with some commercial elements”.
Two back rooms of Gillan’s garage had been converted into well-equipped drug growing chambers.
Among the set-up were heat lamps, a hydration system, timers, fans and a CCTV security system, court documents said.
Officers seized 16 mature cannabis plants (up to 52cm in height), two young plants and 27 clones in propagation boxes.
There was also a range of fertilisers on site and Gillan appeared to be well organised.
Plants were labelled according to strains: “B Berry”, “Big Kush”, “Critical” and “PB Playboy” among them.
It was clearly not Gillan’s first crop.
Police found more than 4kg of low-quality dried root and stalk material, as well as utensils and scales around the house.
The projected yield could have netted the defendant nearly $46,000, the court heard.
It was what police found in Gillan’s bedroom that was most sinister, Crown prosecutor Chris Bernhardt said.
Inside a reusable shopping bag was a sawn-off .22 firearm loaded with a single round.
Gillan explained that gang members had visited the house after hearing he was selling cannabis and a friend later gave him the weapon for protection.
Counsel Meg Scally said her client had a significant addiction to the drug which had endured since his teenage years.
While the crop was for his own consumption, she said, he started to sell because Covid-19 put an end to his business and he wanted to clear his rent arrears.
Ms Scally told the court Gillan was now committed to abstinence and she argued he should be allowed to serve home detention at his mother’s house.
Judge Smith, though, stressed the seriousness of the combination of drugs and firearms.
Gillan was jailed for 26 months.
