GROW-OP REGISTRY URGED

Home Buyers Can Get Stuck With Mess: Fantino

Home buyers offered properties tainted by chemicals and mould from
indoor mari juana grow-ops could avoid health problems and financial
loss if owners are made to identify them, Ontario's top cop says.

And courts could further discourage wannabe pot millionaires with
tougher sentences, OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said yesterday.

The GTA has become "a significant market" for cultivating pot,
Fantino told the Sunday Sun. "I'm not talking about the casual user
.. organized crime latched on very quickly."

The GTA is plagued with a growing number of hydroponic grow-ops in
houses and rural properties, which police say can yield $1 million in one year.

The lure of big returns has wooed people from all walks of life.

Commenting on the arrests Thursday of two police officers and three
local jail guards in Toronto, where he was chief from 2000 to 2005,
Fantino said, "It saddens me, any time law enforcement officials are
accused of any offence.

"There are exceptions to everything," he said. "But we're blessed
with the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers doing their best."

Consts. Kevin Bourne and Patrick Lee and Correctional Service
officers Roberta McNabb, Danny Benipal and Adam Valenti were among 20
people charged after raids on what York Regional Police called a
sophisticated marijuana growing and money-laundering operation.

Weed is just one threat.

Recent raids nabbed gangs allegedly trading pot for hard drugs and
guns, what Fantino said police call a "brown south, a white north"
trend -- marijuana swapped in the U.S. for cocaine and heroin to be sold here.

As puffers push for legalization, police must keep warning that
criminals with "international links" are involved, he said.

"We need a robust response from the courts," Fantino said. "We'd like
to see more prison time."

Grow-op neighbours are also at risk from chemicals exploding, and
house fires have been caused by illegally-tapped electrical circuits
overloading, he said.

Gangs have booby-trapped homes to stop rivals or police, and minders
have been slain.

"A lot of farmers who tend the crops are illegal immigrants and they
have children," Fantino said. When arrested, they face jail,
deportation and youngsters go to the Children's Aid Society.

Some mortgaged, rented or gang-owned homes get re-used. Others are
abandoned by criminals wary of neighbours calling police, which he
said aids police. Crooks know the risk of invaders rises the longer they stay.

Defumigation, patched-up wiring and a splash of paint on humidity-
marred walls are among the quick fixes done by owners to unload
properties after tenants leave or police clear them out.

"There ought to be a very public registry for a home-buyer to check,"
Fantino said. "It's something every municipality should have."