POLICE WRECK WRONG JOINT IN POT RAID

SURREY -- Like most dads, Efren Ramirez was looking forward to spending
Father's Day with his children.

Instead, the father of two was busy Sunday repairing the damage done when
RCMP broke down his doors Saturday after mistaking his home for a marijuana
grow operation.

"I'm disappointed," said Ramirez, who has lived with his wife, children and
mother-in-law in a two-storey house for more than a year.

"They got the wrong information."

The family returned to their home from a relative's birthday party in
Vancouver about 9 p.m. Saturday to find police waiting in the driveway.

Ramirez thought they had been robbed.

Instead, police served him a search warrant and an apology. They had broken
down four doors of the house to look for evidence while the family was out.

Ramirez's copy of the search warrant showed his property was investigated
for "possession of a controlled sub-stance."

The warrant was signed by Const. Jason Flynn of Surrey RCMP's drug section.
He could not be reached for comment.

Most likely, the police got the wrong address: The house next door seems a
better candidate. Every window of the unoccupied two-storey building to the
left of the Ramirez home was shuttered tight against the sun Sunday.

The yard was overgrown, there were no cars in the driveway and a large wasp
nest blocked all garage door access.

Ramirez said he occasionally saw a man drive up and go in at night, but
otherwise the house seemed empty.

The rate of Surrey drug offences more than doubled from 1998 to 2002 up to
531 incidents per 100,000 residents, according to Statistics Canada.

And it's costing the municipality. In 2003, Surrey charged grow-op property
owners $384,000 in policing, fire and city costs.

Officers have assured Ramirez, who works two jobs as an electronics assembly
worker and hospital housekeeper, that police would cover repair costs.