RENTAL OWNERS MAY FACE POT BUST COSTS

London landlords whose rental properties are turned into marijuana
grow operations by tenants could be on the hook when the drug dens
are busted, police Chief Murray Faulkner warns.

If the suggestion by police is adopted by city council, property
owners -- even if they're not connected to the pot growing -- would
have to cover the costs, among them salaries, police run up while
razing a grow-op.

"You can't just say 'I rent it, but I don't know what goes on,' "
said Faulkner, who broached the subject with the police services
board last week. "I think a lot of people, as long as the cheques
come in, they don't care. But that does nothing for our community,
that's for sure."

The idea is merely a suggestion in its "preliminary stages," Faulkner noted.

Such a bylaw -- already enacted in one Toronto-area city -- would
have seen London police recover $33,000 from landlords after grow-op
busts last year, Faulkner said. Instead, the cost was covered by taxpayers.

While Faulkner initially said yesterday "innocent" landlords wouldn't
be targeted, he later amended that view.

It's up to landlords to exercise their right, given under Ontario's
Tenant Protection Act, to keep watch over the homes and apartments
they rent, Faulkner said.

"The landlord has a right . . . to do inspections after they give
notice," he said. "If the landlord finds what he believes to be a
grow-op and notifies (police), he is off the hook."

But it's not quite so simple, Paul Cappa of the London Property
Management Association said, noting an owner needs a specific reason
to search a home they've rented.

"A landlord's caught between a rock and a hard place," Cappa said.
"That's obviously a concern that we have, that police would (propose) that."

Police have long pointed to grow-ops as dangerous, especially because
they're often hidden inside seemingly normal homes in otherwise quiet
neighbourhoods.

While he wouldn't comment on the potentially controversial police
suggestion that landlords pay for their tenants' crimes, one
councillor acknowledged grow-ops are an increasing problem.

"It's occurring in our community certainly more than we would like it
to happen," said Coun. Ab Chahbar, who sits on the police services
board. "We'd like to bring it under control. We would like to
eliminate it, period."

To Faulkner, who estimated about 60 grow-ops were busted here last
year, this proposal could help do just that.

"You need to come up with new and innovative ways to attack the
problem," he said.

"Unless you write up a bylaw (wherein) the owner is partly liable,
it's no good. There's no teeth to it."