KNOX — Police found 20 marijuana plants in Edward and Patricia Gardineer’s East Berne home.

Police were met with the pungent smell of marijuana when they entered the Gardineers’ house at 1496 Thompson’s Lake Road on Jan. 22, said Inspector John Burke who heads the Drug Interdiction Unit of the Albany County Sheriff’s Department. After receiving complaints about the Gardineers’ house, the sheriff’s department and the Altamont Police got a search warrant for the place, he said.

Police seized about 10 pounds of marijuana that has an estimated street value of $30,000, according to a release from the sheriff’s department.
"The thing I find strange is the age," said Burke of the couple. Patricia Gardineer is 59 and her husband, Edward, who works as a senior claims examiner in consumer services for the New York State Department of Insurance, is 60.
Burke guessed that the couple must have had the operation going for a while, though he didn’t know for how long. Underneath the stairwell, in the basement, police found a room used for growing the marijuana, Burke said, with about 20 plants in different stages of growth. Police found a scale, baggies, books on how to grow marijuana, growing lamps, soil, pots, and chemicals used for growing the plants. "He was pretty well-versed," said Burke of Edward Gardineer’s knowledge about growing marijuana.

Freshly picked marijuana was hanging from ropes in the bathroom to dry, police say.

Everything related to the plants was confiscated and is in the custody of the sheriff’s department. The lamps, soil, and pots will likely be donated to 4-H or the cooperative extension at the end of the trial, said Burke; the plants themselves will be burned.

The Gardineers were each charged with second-degree criminal possession of marijuana, a felony, and unlawfully growing cannabis without a license, a misdemeanor.
When it comes to drugs, Burke said, "Age is no barrier."