LANDLORD FIGHTS 'NO OCCUPY' ORDER BY CITY

City officials have slapped a no occupancy order on a Fletcher Street
home where police responded to a report of shots fired last Thursday.

But the landlord is fighting the order, saying his tenants are the
victims of a home invasion, and are now being victimized again by city
and police officials.

A city official said the no occupancy order is not meant to punish,
but to protect the health and safety of the residents.

"We're telling them it's not a safe place to occupy," said the
official, who spoke on a background basis only.

He said during the police search of the house after the shooting,
"evidence was found which gave police reasonable cause to suspect
drugs may have been manufactured" there. The city is awaiting tests to
confirm "contamination," he added.

Landlord Mohan Singh Biryah said neither the police nor the city are
showing him any proof the house has been used as a "meth lab" as alleged.

He also said when police responded to the shots fired report last
Thursday, the tenants were arrested while the real "invaders" fled the
scene.

"The police did not know these (tenants) were the victims," he
said.

Biryah said he has been fined for unsightly premises at Fletcher
Street, but he added the tenants living there now have been no problem.

One tenant, who asked not to be identified, said the occupants feel
victimized because they called police for help - only to be arrested
and then forced by the city to move out.

"The city claimed the RCMP had given them grounds to do so, in spite
of the fact the RCMP had finished their search and given the occupants
clearance to re-occupy the home the night before," he said.

Biryah said the city has made several "random" inspections of the
house without notice in the past - without making any allegations of
drug manufacturing.

"After they do (those) inspections, now they're saying over here is a
meth lab?"

The tenant, who was not home at the time of the Thursday incident,
said three armed "perpetrators" arrived at the house intending to rob
the occupants.

However, a "scuffle" broke out and the three fled after a gun went
off, narrowly missing one of the occupants.

The tenant said the house does have a previous history with the police
- - but different tenants were involved.

"I'm just a working guy," the tenant said. "I'm sort of caught in the
middle of this ... it's beginning to feel like it's easier to just
walk away from it all."