if you are in a legal state the police wont waste the manpower staking out a hydro store. besides its entrapment to stake people out at a hydro store only to fallow them and pull them over later in the beliefs of them purchasing supplies for growing mj. only the dumb cops would try.
There was a big thing a while back (6 months, year maybe?) Where cops were straight up just chilling at hydro stores and writing license plate numbers down. They weren't doing any further investigating and used this info to get search warrants at the addresses.
They raided one couples house, kicked in the door at 7 a.m. and hog tied them and their two kids. Turns out the couple were both retired CIA. They had a hydroponics setup in the basement growing tomatoes and squash and whatnot under CFLs.
Another guy who's house they raided came around the corner of his hallway holding a golf club over his head. They immediately shot him 3 times in the chest and he was dead within a minute.
It goes to show how they can basically do whatever they want. We have lost our freedoms, this country is nothing that it was ever intended to be.
That being said, I think they made some pretty big fuck ups with using grow stores as a means to an arrest and for the most part don't really do it as much (not as blatantly as getting your license plate number and then a search warrant, anyways). I mean sure, there might be some ganja hating socialist pigs out there getting license plate numbers, but if you keep the rest of your shit clean they can't really do anything withe it BC of the recent fuck ups.
I live in a place where anyone walking into a grow store is doing something illegal. The guy had a hard time opening even, with inspectors making him take down display tents and what not before they would pass him. I shop there all the time and haven't had any trouble