UTILITIES TO GET RIGHT TO CUT POWER TO SUSPECTED GROW-OPS

TORONTO - Ontario will give hydro companies the right to cut power to
homes they suspect are being used to grow marijuana, the province's
solicitor general says.

The move is part of comprehensive legislation, slated for introduction
this fall, that will give police additional tools to combat marijuana
grow-ops, said Monte Kwinter.

"A lot of these buildings have got an incredible number of children
living in them and they're being put at risk because of the chemicals,
because of the electricity, because of the booby traps that are in
there rigged up," he said.

"This is an attempt to give the various sectors that are impacted by
it the authority to deal with it."

Electricity distributors can often detect homes that have illegally
tapped into power lines.

The new legislation will allow those companies to cut homes suspected
of stealing power without obtaining police approval to do so.

"They have to do their due diligence," Kwinter added.

Officials estimate the cost of electricity theft by illegal indoor
marijuana operations at close to $80 million.

"We have every responsibility to put those grow-ops out of business,"
Kwinter said.

"You have to understand that virtually all of these grow-ops are owned
by absentee owners. They have people in there that are just there to
tend the plants and their home isn't their castle, their home is a
grow-op."

Earlier this year, officials from the banking, electricity, insurance
and real estate industries met with law enforcement to discuss
collaborative approaches to eradicate the billion-dollar pot grow-op
industry.

"We're simply looking for the whole community to be involved," said
Paul Hamelin, president of the Ontario Associations of Chiefs of Police.

"There are a huge number of marijuana grow operations in the
province...(and they) are becoming increasingly larger and more numerous."