Gardaí ‘could smell drugs from street’

A man was caught with a cannabis growhouse in his apartment after gardaí on patrol smelled the odour that was being carried onto a city centre street through a makeshift air duct.

Sebastian Charzynski, 30, was growing 45 cannabis plants in a specialised tent in this sitting room. He had placed a large air duct coming from the tent through opened windows in the apartment which carried the strong smell onto Dublin’s Aungier St.

At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Garda Patrick Martin told Grainne O’Neill BL, prosecuting that he suspected the smell was coming from Charzynski’s apartment in the Grafton Hall complex after he went into the building, having first got the odour from the street while on routine patrol.