CITIES TO HAND COSTS TO GROW-OP HOMEOWNERS

West Shore municipalities are joining forces to bring the hammer down
on homeowners who allow marijuana grow-ops or drug labs on their property.

Langford, Colwood and View Royal are drafting common bylaws that
would hand all costs - including police, firefighters, building
inspectors and cleanup crews - to the owner if drug operations cause
building code violations.

"When a grow-op is found, it's usually at the taxpayers expense. This
is a tool for cost recovery," said Kevin Atkinson, Colwood's bylaw
enforcement officer.

"It makes the homeowner responsible. You can't be an absentee
landlord. You have got to do inspections."

Atkinson said from the moment a drug operation is located, police,
fire and other emergency and municipal responders will be asked to
track their time for billing to the owner.

That price tag could quickly grow to thousands of dollars. A fire
crew of six with a truck comes in at $600 per hour. An RCMP officer
or a drug disposal officer costs $52 per hour, while a building
inspector runs at $54 per hour.

Grow-op houses are typically rejigged with haphazard venting and
electrical wiring, and the plants can infect the house with a toxic
mould. Dangerous chemicals from crystal meth labs seep into drywall
and can off-gas at a later time.

Atkinson said bringing a building back to code can be very expensive,
and would usually require gutting the interior.

Conversely, if a grow-op is found, but the house is still to code the
matter would be deferred to the police.

"Our objective is public safety and public health," Atkinson said.
"We are dealing with criminal activity by dealing with the health and
safety issue."

West Shore RCMP Cpl. Gord Bedingfield estimates the community has
"hundreds" of grow-ops, and expects the bylaws to help curb the business.

"There are hundreds we know about. They are everywhere," Bedingfield
said.

The three municipalities started working on common controlled
substances bylaws after successfully creating unified fireworks
bylaws last year.

Similar drug bylaws have been enacted in Saanich, Surrey and other
Lower Mainland cities.

Langford has passed first reading of its bylaw, and is bringing it to
the Ministry of Health for review. Other municpalities expect to
bring their controlled substances bylaws before respective councils
this fall.

View Royal administrator Mark Brennan noted the bylaws will allow
municipalities to take an active role in public safety, instead of
just picking up the tab.

See BYLAWS Page A4

In the past, he said, housing tenants caught with a grow op would
disappear, while the owner would plead ignorance.

"The onus is on the property owner, and they cannot wash their hands
of the problem," Brennan said.

Complementing the bylaws, but unrelated to them, the province has
handed all municipal governments the power to request residential
electricity consumption from B.C. Hydro.

The amended Safety Standards Act, enacted in May, allows B.C. Hydro
to release lists of houses using more than 93 kilowatt hours per day
of electricity, roughly three times the provincial average.

The concept is that high consumption might point to a marijuana
grow-op. If consumption is deemed suspicious, municipal electrical
inspectors would give the homeowner notice and inspect the house.

Hydro spokesperson Elisha Moreno said the program is designed to
protect the public. She said the residential data will not be
transferred to police, although police can attend with an electrical
inspector.

"It's not meant for police investigations," she said. "The police can
make their own requests."

Moreno said municipalities, upon request, will receive 25 months
worth of records on flagged houses, and software to help distinguish
high consumption from suspicious consumption.

David Loukidelis, B.C.'s privacy commissioner, was critical of the
legislation, saying in an April 6 notice: "(S)uch initiatives amount
to a form of surveillance, involving compilation and use of
information about entire classes of citizens without grounds for
individualized suspicion of wrongdoing."

Since May, only one B.C. municipality has requested consumption
information, but the name of the community has not been released.

Administrators from Langford, View Royal and Colwood confirmed they
expect to request residential electricity data for their respective
communities.

"We welcome it," said Atkinson. "It will only make it easier for a
municipality to identify where there might be a significant health
and safety risk."