NEIGHBOURS, LANDLORDS ENLISTED IN POLICE WAR AGAINST GROW OPS

Calgarians Asked To Tattle If They Spot Telltale Clues

Tom Stiff knew it the minute he walked into the room -- the humidity was
overwhelming.

He could see the rot in the drywall -- the black mould was everywhere.

This room, in the basement of the Marlborough home he'd rented to a nice
teacher lady and her friend, had been used for a marijuana grow operation.

Not again, he thought.

This was the second time the veteran realtor had been burned by tenants in
one of his rental properties.

The first time was about five years ago, when he rented a home in
Queensland to a well-dressed young man.

The six-month lease was nearing an end when the man called Stiff to say
he'd be leaving and wanted his damage deposit back.

Before Stiff was able to inspect the southeast property, the renter skipped
out and forfeited his money.

The house was clean and nothing seemed out of place -- until Stiff's next
tenants tried to turn on the lights.

"The meter blew right away. We had the city come out and the wires had been
shaved down," says Stiff. "He'd bypassed the (electricity) meter."

The bypass ruined the meter, forcing Stiff to fork out $500 for a new one.

The home in Marlborough took a little more time, and money, to get back up
to snuff.

"A complete room had been built (in the basement), double-insulated, and
there were cubbyholes to get into it," said Stiff. "The humidity in the
room was unbelievable. You could see all of the mould."

Stiff, a veteran Calgary real estate agent with 28 years under his belt,
has since changed the way he does business with his tenants.

"We now tell the prospective tenants that we'll do a check on the house
every two to three months," he said. "Nowadays, you have to be more on top
of it. We were as naive as anyone else. Now, it's become easy to spot."

Stiff has become one of a growing number of Calgarians who are actively
looking for signs of marijuana grow operations in their neighbourhoods and
calling police to clean them out.

Now, more than ever, police rely on the public to help them bust grow ops
by asking people to tattle on their neighbours.

"We certainly wouldn't be as successful without the co-operation of the
community. People recognize (this) as a problem," says Calgary police drug
unit Staff Sgt. Trevor Daroux. "They don't want it in their community."

Police received more than 415 tips from the public last year about possible
grow ops around the city.

In the first two months of this year, 229 anonymous calls were made to
officers.

Forty of those tips led police to illegitimate grow ops.

So, with police relying so heavily on regular citizens to report some of
the worst, and most violent, criminals, how can the public's safety be
guaranteed?

"We're very careful that the tips are anonymous," said Daroux.

Community safety groups who advocate for the idea say the public walks a
"fine line" between being vigilant and being compromised.

"The only concern about making that phone call is encroaching in gangland
activities," says Mark Hollingsworth, executive director of the Calgary
Block Watch Council. "There's too much at stake not to make the phone call."

Hollingsworth said Block Watch has long tried to convince people that
helping to make the community a safer place doesn't require an act of
vigilantism.

"There seems to be a perception out there that it's citizens roaming the
streets with clubs," he said. "(Anonymity) is a very hard concept to get
through. . . .

"You've just got to hope that the power of one million people is greater
than the power of the criminals."

Calgary police have gone as far as to distribute pamphlets across the city,
asking for help in the fight against marijuana grow operations.

They are also planning courses through the Calgary Real Estate Board,
geared specifically toward teaching agents to spot the pot, an idea
supported by officials of the board.

"We've embraced it," says CREB president Don Dickson. "We would be a great
ally for police, with 4,500 of us driving around every day."

Dickson believes it's a realtor's civic duty to alert police to a potential
drug house.

"We're talking about organized crime. It's a risk you have to take," he
said. "We encourage them to (call police), as good corporate citizens."

The real estate industry has also been hit hard by the home grow problem.

Dickson has seen $250,000 homes lose half their value, selling for between
$140,000 and $160,000.

"That represents a huge loss to the bank," he said. "And who do you think
is going to pay for that (in the end)?"

From Bearspaw to Dover, homes are being raided by police on a daily basis.

Some are one-bedroom operations, capable of growing several hundred plants.

Others are strewn through an entire house, with the potential to grow
several million dollars worth of pot in a year.

In December, police officers with the Southern Alberta Marijuana
Investigative Team hauled in more than $3 million worth of marijuana plants
from an upscale house in Scenic Acres in the northwest. They seized plants
that were in three stages of growth, allowing them to be harvested with a
new crop every few months.

Police also confiscated clippings, used to clone the most potent,
productive plants.

Neighbours said they believed something unusual was happening on their street.

The blinds were never open, although the windows were open during cold
winter nights. A steady stream of different cars visited at all hours.

Neighbours who moved next door to the Schiller Crescent N.W. house went to
introduce themselves last summer. When they rang the doorbell hoping to
shake hands and say hello, no one answered the door.

Eventually, the neighbours called police.

The tip led officers to one of the largest grow op busts in the city's
history, and bolstered last year's tally of pot seizures to $54 million.

Police Chief Jack Beaton would like to see even more marijuana plucked from
the streets.

Beaton's priority when he took over the reins of the police service in 2000
was to systematically target and dismantle marijuana grow operations.

He sees grow ops -- not only criminally, but socially -- as one of the
biggest problems plaguing the city.

"Because of grow operations, I would never buy a house in this city without
having it inspected for toxic mould," says Beaton. "Toxic mould -- if
you've watched even the hospital scandals, things like that -- that mould
doesn't go away. It stays in that home forever.

"So the people that inhabit that home in the future, if it's not completely
redone, guess what? They're going to suffer from those conditions and get
sick and wonder what it is. It'll be that toxic mould that comes as a
result of hydroponic growth in that house."