NO WARRANTS, NO WAITING, MAYOR SAYS

Police and firefighters in Coquitlam could soon be shutting down marijuana
grow operations without having to obtain a search warrant, Mayor Maxine
Wilson said Wednesday.

Wilson, speaking at a meeting about grow ops hosted by Westwood Plateau
Community Association, said the city is considering taking its lead from
the cities of Surrey and Abbotsford to pass bylaws that would allow
emergency personnel to post a notice on a home requesting an inspection to
investigate high electricity consumption. If an inspection is denied within
the allotted time period, police and fire officials would have the power to
turn off hydro to the house, Wilson told the crowd.

"We are seriously looking at this now," she told the crowd at Summit middle
school. "We are doing everything as a city to support our police and fire
departments in battling grow operations."

This year, Coquitlam RCMP has received 216 complaints about grow ops, she said.

Patrick McPhillips, a Coquitlam Fire/Rescue assistant chief, said the fire
department will be presenting the proposal to city council later this
month. Details about how Coquitlam's initiative would work have yet to be
ironed out.

"This is all about moving the grow operators out of the community,"
McPhillips said, noting cultivators wouldn't be charged but simply
inconvenienced. "The fire department isn't into the enforcement part but
the safety side."

City of Coquitlam spokesperson Therese Mickelson said the city is now able
to look at the measures because of new provincial legislation that allows
municipalities to have access to BC Hydro records on demand -- data that
can then be turned over to police to determine if spikes in power use were
caused by a grow op.

Pot growers require three to 10 times the electricity used by a normal home.

Surrey implemented its Electrical Fire Safety Initiative Team in March 2005
and, since, its crews have investigated power usage at 271 homes; out of
those, 243 turned out to be electrical hazards, many of them likely grow
operations. The remaining 28 were either false leads or homes with
secondary suites that had high power consumption, according to Surrey Fire
Chief Len Garis.

Last month, Garis told Black Press the public's safety outweighs privacy
rights.

But Michael Vonn, policy director for the BC Civil Liberties Association,
said the program isn't well thought out. "We are concerned about the
evasion of the search warrants, which provide a balance for legal
standards," she said.

She also questioned whether the program may force grow operators to use
alternate power sources, such as propane, to fuel their marijuana harvests.

Still, Coquitlam RCMP welcomes the plan. "We're definitely in favour of
anything that helps us take down these illegal operations," Const. Dave
Babineau said.

Delta, Richmond and Nanaimo are considering adopting similar anti-grow bylaws.

- -- with files from Kevin Diakiw of the Surrey Leader.