Business Licences for Rental Homes Pitched

RICHMOND COUNCILLOR HOPES TO FLUSH OUT GROW-OP PROBLEM

A Richmond councillor wants to weed out pot grow-ops in rental homes
by requiring landlords to acquire business licences and do inspections
of their properties.

Coun. Bill McNulty says there are hundreds of grow-ops in the
municipality, many in rental homes operated by absentee landlords such
as offshore owners or companies making investments.

He says he got the idea after the city was embarrassed by the
discovery of a city rental home being used as a grow-op and wants
municipal staff to look at drawing up a bylaw that would crack down on
the problem.

"It's one option to look at and we do have a problem on our hands,"
said McNulty. "Anything we can do to mitigate grow-ops in our
community is a step in the right direction."

McNulty moved the motion in city council chambers last night to ask
staff to probe the matter.

It was passed unopposed, but Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie and at
least one councillor had doubts.

Brodie said while grow-ops are a "real problem" in Richmond, RCMP have
a reasonably good handle on where they are and doubts whether
licensing landlords is the answer.

"That would create a lot of activity and I'm not sure that would give
you further information or better help you regulate the situation."

Coun. Derek Dang said while there's some merit in the proposal and
he'd like to see more investigation into the question, it might harm
tenants' rights and infringe on other laws.

"You could be the best landlord in the world and certain things can
run out of control. We've got to search for all and any means to
minimize this type of damage."

Linda Mix of the Tenants Rights Action Coalition believes the plan
might simply drive bad landlords underground.

"The problem is you would have a lot of landlords who are private
people, who would not go and obtain a business licence because they're
not claiming their properties as revenue," she said.

"You've got secondary-suites landlords who are sort of underground
anyway, because Richmond hasn't legalized secondary suites."

The answer to the problem is to provide stronger enforcement of the
Residential Tenancy Act by municipal officials, she said.

Landlords in Prince George whose homes have been turned into drug
houses could be fined under a strategy being considered by city staff
and local RCMP.

"The idea is to make landlords responsible for the people they rent
to," said Rob Whitwham, administrative services director for Prince
George.

Said RCMP Const. Mike Caira: "A lot of these houses are owned by absentee
landlords and we want to get them to be more actively involved."