POT GROWING CONVICTION UPHELD ON APPEAL

A Vancouver man caught red-handed watering hundreds of thousands of
dollars worth of pot at a major marijuana grow op in Merville has
lost the appeal of his conviction.

Piotr Kwiatkowski was convicted in May 2008 of producing marijuana
after police found him tending more than 3,000 plants -- 1,056 mature
plants and 2,059 clones -- inside five greenhouses on a Merville
property in July 2005.

In August 2008 provincial court Judge Peter Doherty sentenced
Kwiatkowski to a year behind bars followed by a year of probation.

Kwiatkowski appealed his conviction on the grounds that his privacy
rights had been violated when police in a helicopter took photos of
the plants inside the greenhouses using a zoom lens.

Doherty rejected the argument. He found that the use of the zoom
lens, which could be picked up at a retail store, was no different
that the use of binoculars or police radar on highways.

A three-member panel of the B.C. Court of Appeal upheld the ruling
and the conviction.

It is estimated that the plants could produce as much as 173
kilograms of dried pot. Police also found 750 grams of dried cannabis
on the property. The total value of marijuana seized is estimated at
between $500,000 and $750,000.