GROWING CONCERN

Markel Drive sits at the very top of Promontory Heights. It's an
unimposing stretch of road barely 100 metres long where nine homes,
plus half a duplex, look out over the nicely-curbed road; the houses
are large, mostly new, and several are undergoing renovations.
New--but not flashy--vehicles rest in driveways.

If you overlook a couple unruly lawns and a red City of Chilliwack
notice in the window of the largest home, you would hardly suspect
that in the last six years, four marijuana grow operations have been
busted on this block, including two in the same house.

Whether by chance or design, Markel Drive has become a favourite
neighbourhood for marijuana growers. But it's hardly the only stretch
of road that has hosted multiple grow operations in recent years.

An analysis by the Chilliwack Times shows that marijuana grow houses
have been set up in a diverse array of neighbourhoods both poor and
rich, rural and urban.

From Sunrise Drive on Chilliwack Mountain, to Sunset Drive near
Prospera Centre, grow-ops have been set up on nearly every block.
Indeed, it's more likely that you have a grow-op on your block than a
corner store.

In 2004, city council passed a bylaw that required buildings that
housed grow-operations and other so-called "noxious trades" to pass
an inspection before they could be reoccupied. Earlier this year, the
Times asked for, and received, a comprehensive list of nearly every
property--210 in total--that has fallen under the bylaw's purview in
the last six years.

Of those properties, all but two were marijuana grow operations. The
non-pot pair hosted a different sort of drug business, according to
city hall. Since receiving the city hall report, police have busted
at least one more grow-op. However, the RCMP does not publicize every
grow-op drug bust it makes.

Using Google Maps, the Times plotted each address on a map, along
with a few more recent busts. (The map can be viewed at the bottom of
this page).

It's important to note that all those addresses were former homes of
marijuana and other drug production. In most cases the current
residents of each property did not occupy the homes at the time of
their use as grow houses. Furthermore, it is believed that most (but
not all) grow operations are run by people renting a home from an
absentee landlord. The Times did not receive dates for when each grow
operation was busted.

Nevertheless, the scope of the data is revealing.

The highway splits the grow houses nearly in two; of the 219 grow
operations (seven homes were used twice), 124 were north of the
Trans-Canada Highway and 95 were south of the No. 1.

Prosperity was no guarantee of a grow house-free neighbourhood. In
the grittier neighbourhood wedged south of Yale Road and north of the
train tracks, 19 drug houses were busted. But that number is eclipsed
in well-to-do Promontory Heights, which was home to 22 "noxious
trades." Sardis Pond was another hot spot, with a map showing blue
dots, signifying grow houses, clustered south and east of the pond.

Certain neighbourhoods were somehow able to avoid drug houses. The
large rectangle bordered by Evans and Vedder road in the west and
east, Stevenson Road in the south and the highway in the north shows
just one busted grow op. And there are other pockets, most notably on
Fairfield Island and in some residential areas north of the highway,
that have largely escaped the signs of police activity now common on
Markel Drive.

There, one resident who moved to the road five years ago told the
Times that she felt safe on her road, although the repeat visits by
police were surprising, to say the least.

One day last fall, the resident looked out her window to see at least
three RCMP cars and a large van swarming the road and fixating on a
house just two doors down from her.

"I'm like holy crap, as all of this is going on'," said the resident,
who didn't want to be named. She knew the resident, a local
mixed-martial arts fighter who she called "Mike" and and said he
seemed like a nice enough guy.

"Maybe if he was driving a motorcycle with cut offs on, you would
have thought it."

Six months later, the home was still vacant, the owners nowhere to be
seen. That isn't always the case. In several instances, home owners
have been charged and convicted with operating grow operations in
their own houses. While these owners would seem to be prime targets
for a $10,000 fine provided for in the city's anti-grow op bylaw,
Chilliwack officials have yet to bring out its biggest stick. Find
out why in the next Times.