HIT THE ROAD WITH THE GROW SHOW

At the risk of sounding like a clipboard-wielding judge from some
type of better homes and gardens competition, there are a few homes
on my walking/biking/driving routes that furrow my brow and elicit a
slight scowl of suspicion.

We all face Vitamin D deficiencies during the winter at our northern
parallel, so why wouldn't you open your curtains in the middle of the
day and let those rays warm your house?

I wonder - as I'm sure others do - if the residence is in fact a
marijuana grow operation.

There are a lot of troubling details about the operation discovered
on Nichol Road last week. People from out of town who were operating
a large, sophisticated operation. It has been connected to as far
away as Hong Kong so far, so who knows who we are dealing with. Are
there more? How many?

Also, with a lot more turnover in town, people don't quite know their
neighbours as well as they used to ...

I'd go through a comprehensive list of things to watch out for in a
marijuana grow operation, but most of them are common sense -- like
the curtains are never open, people with irregular schedules that
never stay overnight, steam coming from the building, unusual garbage
or no garbage at all, and so on.

What's more important is doing something about it. We can all have
our suspicions about that shack on the other side of town, or that
house we pass on the way to work, but what's probably more relevant
to police is what you see in your neighbourhood -- right next door.
Keep and eye out, and take some notes if you think it doesn't add up
- - times, dates, plate numbers. Call the police or simply call
anonymous police tips line Crimestoppers.

If you take some time to troll through readers' comments on stories
about property values in B.C., and especially the Lower Mainland,
you'll eventually find someone linking big increases in home values
to B.C.'s marijuana industry.

The homes are all crammed with marijuana plants, they write, or else
they were bought in order to launder proceeds of crime.

It's an interesting theory, and given the affordability issues
Revelstoke already faces, we don't need to find out if it is true.

Oh, and if you're all for property values going higher and higher,
I'll just add that this isn't the right way to do it!