The Rural Voice, 2002-04, Page 16ACKLANDS '
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12 THE RURAL VOICE
Mabel's Grill
The
world's
problems
are
solved
daily
'round
the table
at
Mabel 's
"I hear the police raided another
house ovgr your way for one of those
marijuana growing operations,"
George McKenzie said to Cliff
Murray the other day.
"Yep. The neighbours got kind of
curious 'cause they saw the place
was sold but there never seemed to
be anybody around and all the
windows were blacked out," said
Cliff. "Then we find out some guy
from the city turned the whole place
into a big hydroponic operation."
"Well it's nice to know if the
town continues to go downhill like it
has been I'll always be able to sell
my house to some guy from the
city," said Wayne Bruce.
"Yeh, I mean this is the fourth
place in the area the cops have raided
in the past six months," said Cliff.
"Hey, we've become a cluster of
excellence for marijuana growing
operations," said Wayne. "Seems to
be.the only growth industries we've
got 'round here are marijuana houses
and puppy mills."
"Maybe you could turn the whole
town into a marijuana growing
operation," said Dave Winston.
"The PUC might not be happy.
These guys bypass the hydro meter
so they don't have to pay for the
juice for all those big grow lights,"
Cliff said.
"Imagine, buying a whole house
and only using it for growing
marijuana," marvelled George.
"There sure must be a lot of money
in it."
"Yeh, I want them to make
soybeans illegal," said Dave. "I
figure it's the only way I could make
money growing a crop this year."
"Amazing what telling people
they can't have something can do for
prices, isn't it?" said George. "Think
of how good things could be for us if
someone would just ban eating beef
or pork or lamb."
"Yeh, can't you just see little
underground meat growing
operations, people buying houses in
Scarborough and raising pigs in the
basement, ; chuckled Cliff.
"The one flaw is I'm not sure
meat is like drugs," said Wayne. "I
mean part of the reason drugs make
so much money is that people get
hddicted to them."
"Yeh, sort of like bank machines.
Did you see how the banks, now that
they've got us hooked on them, are
going to jump the costs way up?"
asked George.
"Yeh, the one thing that makes
more money than growing marijuana
is banking," said Cliff.
"So Dave," said Wayne with a
twinkle in his eye, "how do you like
being called a pig farmer these days,
with all this fuss about the pig farm
out in British Columbia where
they're searching for those bodies."
"Humph ... pig farm! Does that
place look like a pig farm? Damn
reporters. They could call it a junk
yard with all those wrecked cars
around but no, they call it a 'pig
farm', even though I haven't seen a
pig in sight. They just like the sound
of 'pig farm' and they kind of spit
when they say it!"
"Yeh, if the guy kept lambs it just
wouldn't quite get across the image,
would it?", said Cliff.
"First they try to blame us for
Walkerton and now this," sputtered
Dave. "I mean now not only do
people think we're polluters but
we're kind of dangerous too. People
always have it in for pig farmers."
"Well if you can't stand it, why
not get out of pig farming?"
wondered Cliff.
"Yeh, you've got a big rec room
in the basement, haven't you?" said
Wayne. "You could probably make
as much growing marijuana down
there as your whole farm makes."
"Yeh, and the media always kind
of makes heroes out of people who
grow marijuana, sort of like rum-
runners in prohibition days," said
Cliff. "You could be a hero."
"Until I went to jail," said Dave.
"Yeh, I guess banking's better,"
said Wayne. "You make money like
drug growing but you get to stay out
of jail."0