UNOFFICIAL GROW-OP SEARCHES BEND THE LAW, SAYS LAWYER

'Ruse' To Gain Entry Violates Citizens' Rights, Judge Told

A law allowing homes that show unusually high power consumption to be
inspected is a ruse for police to gain entry without a warrant to
search for marijuana grow-ops, a B.C. Supreme Court judge was told yesterday.

And, since it allows a warrantless entry of homes by police, the law
is a violation of a citizen's rights against unreasonable search and
seizure, said Vancouver lawyer Joseph Arvay, who wants the law struck down.

Arvay represents a Surrey couple, Jason Arkinstall and Jennifer
Green, whose power was shut off after they refused to allow police on
their premises during a warrantless electrical safety inspection.

Arvay said amendments to the provincial Safety Standards Act that
allow the inspections are simply designed to allow police to crack
down on grow-ops.

He said a report by Fraser Valley criminology professor Darryl Plecas
on the dangers of fires in grow-ops is exaggerated, biased and
therefore useless.

The report, used by the government to support legislation that allows
the inspections of homes showing high power consumption -- a possible
grow-op indicator -- found that a home with a grow-op is 24 times
more likely to have a fire.

But Arvay told Justice Bill Smart that an analysis of the report
reveals no such danger.

"The report is so biased, so incomplete, so much designed to support
this initiative, that it isn't worth any consideration," Arvay said.

He said the report failed to take into account the large number of
unknown grow-ops and those using illegal power bypasses.

Last May, a team consisting of Surrey safety inspectors, B.C. Hydro
personnel, firefighters and police demanded entry to the
6,000-square-foot Surrey home of Arkinstall and Green.

The couple agreed to allow everyone in except the police, who did not
have a warrant. The City of Surrey then cut off their power for five
days, forcing them and their young child to abandon the home, even
though city inspectors found no grow-op in the home.

The couple are suing the City of Surrey for damages.

Arvay attacked the city for a policy that he said is "inflexibly,
rigidly applied . . . it doesn't matter whether it's a home of glass
walls and windows and a little old lady with cats in it."

Under the Surrey program, a pilot project for other B.C. communities,
1,000 homes were targeted for safety checks over two years from a
list of 6,000 homes that had high power consumption. (Outside court,
Arvay said only one of those homes was found to have had a grow-op.)

Officials argue that, because of a 48-hour, advance-notice
requirement for a warrant, grow-op equipment is often gone by the
time inspectors show up. Earlier this month, Surrey officials claimed
that the program had cut the number of grow-ops to 100 from 1,000.

Arkinstall has links to the Hells Angels motorcycle club and pleaded
guilty to trafficking cocaine after he was arrested in 2005 during a
crackdown on the Vancouver chapter of the club. He was sentenced to
18 months in jail.

But Arvay said outside court that his client's unsavoury background
was "irrelevant."

The hearing continues today with arguments from the B.C. Civil
Liberties Association, B.C. Hydro and the B.C. government. Surrey
city lawyers are to begin submissions tomorrow.