Meth Lab Busted In California Retirement Community

A 64-year-old California man has been arrested on suspicion of cooking and distributing drugs from his apartment in a Fresno retirement community.

Fresno police had pulled over Robert Short for a routine traffic stop on Saturday night, reports local ABC affiliate KFSN. Short was on supervised release due to previous drug sales, so police searched his car.

“When the officers searched the car, they found four ounces of methamphetamine in the car, which is a lot of methamphetamine, so that’s consistent with somebody who’s selling,” Fresno Police Lt. Joe Gomez told KFSN. Police also found a scale and small plastic bags.

Police then reportedly searched the man’s apartment at the California League-Fresno Village retirement community, where they found a half-pound each of meth and heroin and materials for a meth lab.

A neighbor at the retirement community said Short was a relatively new addition, and that the rest of the “tight-knit” community did not know him that well.

“I do know that he is a new tenant, maybe three or four months ago,” resident Robin Schramek said in the report. “It’s shocking, I would never guess that anything like that would go on at a senior citizen village.”

Fresno Police Lt. Gomez said that’s why the man probably chose the location.

“Just shocking that someone that age would do that, but actually a perfect place to do it, right?” he said. “Retirement village, who would suspect it going on there?”