GROW OP FINES RISE BY $3,100 IN AGASSIZ

Running a grow op in Agassiz just got a little more dicey.

Council recently updated their noxious offences bylaw, upping fines
for those found growing pot.

When a grow operation is located, the District imposes a charge for
safety inspections. That charge is payable by the homeowner, whether
the home owner was complicit in the operation or not.

Up until now, that charge was $400, the same as Chilliwack. However,
in light of the extensive costs involved with the safety inspections,
staff proposed to raise that fee to $3,500.

That fee is in line with Langley and Abbotsford, who also charge
$3,500 to the homeowner. Mission charges $4,900, and Surrey charges
$3,660.

Since November 2008, there have been 10 grow operations busted in the
District of Kent, council was told. Each time, a number of staff have
to go into the home as part of the inspection process.

"It does eat up a lot of time to get that home back to a livable
habitat," CAO Wallace Mah said in the October 25 meeting. "We need to
make these changes to reflect the actual costs involved."

And it doesn't matter if it's a big scale operation, or just one or
two plants for personal use, staff said in an October council meeting.

The District has to send in, at the very least, a bylaw officer,
building official, fire chief and electrical inspector.

They may also require additional fire staff, fire equipment, hazmat
staff, a health inspector and replacement of their own contaminated
materials.

Staff also mentioned that the increased fee could also help cover the
recent spike in policing costs.

But while they've significantly raised the fees, they've also doubled
the period a homeowner has to remediate with the District.

They have changed the time frame from 30 days to 60 days, saying the
previous one-month time frame was "too restrictive" for owners.

And it's often the renter, not the home owner, that is found to be
growing marijuana, staff told council.

The fee is the same for all sizes of grow operations, they said.
Someone growing even one or two plants would be dealing with the same
fee as a large scale grow operation with hundreds, or even thousands,
of plants.