HYDROPONIC DEALER SAYS SURREY'S PROGRAMS ARE PAYING DIVIDENDS

Blinds always drawn on windows. Steamy windows. Beware of Dog
signs.

Unsightly yards.

They might just be anti-social slobs, but they might be pot
growers.

Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis says these are some of the telltale signs
that a house might contain a marijuana grow-op.

"If you run them all together," Garis said of the clues, "it quite
often suggests that it's likely that somebody in there has a
hydroponic farm."

To combat grow-ops in the city, Surrey launched the Electrical Fire
Safety Inspection program where firefighters have the power to inspect
homes using high volumes of electricity.

The program has been a huge success -- it's being copied by other
cities -- and now authorities want to turn up the heat on marijuana
growers even more by enlisting citizens as pot police.

In January, the city, fire department and Surrey RCMP will launch a
public education program aimed at encouraging residents to report the
addresses of houses they suspect may be pot grows.

"We want to become a little more proactive in identifying these
locations," Garis said.

This year, the EFSI program inspected nearly 1,000 addresses obtained
from BC Hydro that met the criteria for unusually high power
consumption.

By September, 65 per cent of the houses on the list were either put
out of business by the joint police-firefighter inspection team or
were no longer using suspicious amounts of electricity.

By the end of this week, Garis says there will only be about 40 houses
left to check.

Complaints to police by residents have also dropped by nearly 40 per
cent, indicating that the program is running pot growers out of town.

"There is significant movement out of the city," Garis
said.

Ever since a report was released in September showing a drop in the
number of grow-ops Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts and other city officials
have been crowing about the program's success and according to one
hydroponic equipment dealer they may be justified.

"Literally, what Mayor Dianne Watts says is true," said the dealer who
didn't want his name published.

Although his business is still strong, customers include gardeners and
orchid fanciers, he admits that the EFSI program crackdown has "pretty
much killed the hydroponic market."

"A lot of stores are closing. It was booming six or seven years ago
and now it's pretty much nothing. It's because of the power laws."

Although he couldn't offer hard figures, Garis says anecdotal evidence
suggests some of the marijuana growers have abandoned Surrey for other
cities in the region and Washington state.

Police believe that three-quarters of B.C. marijuana crop is destined
for the U.S.

"Although it's anecdotal, there's a significant increase being felt in
the number of grow-ops that are being attended to by police in
Washington state," he said.