POLICE OFFICER URGES BYLAW CHANGE

Victoria police Const. Brad Fraser motioned to an image on the screen
behind him depicting a neighbourhood of luxury homes.

Against the backdrop of well-maintained homes and backyard swimming
pools, one home stood out... or, at least, its remains did.

Debris lay scattered across the breadth of at least five surrounding
parcels of land: shattered wood, chunks of concrete, the remains of a
vehicle, shreds of clothing and the crumbled lumps of appliances.

The image bore startling semblance to pictures that became
all-too-familiar in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, save that the home
had not suffered from a natural disaster.

Instead, as Fraser explained, the house had harboured a large-scale
marijuana growing operation. When occupants began extracting
marijuana sap into high-grade oil using highly explosive solvents,
something went horribly wrong.

The story drove home a message Fraser delivered to Esquimalt council
Monday: the town must actively and quickly adopt a bylaw requiring
landowners to pay for costs incurred by marijuana grow-ops and so
called "labs" producing illegal drugs such as ecstasy and crystal
methamphetamine.

When (not if) a lab is found in Esquimalt, the labour and time
required to clean up the mess will be extensive, Fraser declared,
because drug manufacturing process involve dangerous chemicals and
create highly toxic byproducts that require significant labour to
clean up or remove.

"When a meth lab is discovered in Esquimalt, you'll have a lot of
people coming to do a lot of things," he said.

Because the region does not yet have a specialized unit able to deal
with hazardous materials, a HAZMAT team will have to come here from
Vancouver, he explained: a costly venture.

Then there's the labour of firefighters, police, health officials: no
small sum, Fraser asserted. Add that to the costs of the provincial
and federal workers that will have to sort through the witches brew
of chemicals to identify them and the cost of shipping to those
chemicals by barge to the Mainland for destruction, and even a simple
lab will leave the taxpayer on the hook for a bill that will range
from as little as 5,000 or a sum exceeding $100,000.

Clean up for a small clandestine lab might take as little as 18
hours, while a so-called large-scale "superlab" takes as long as long
as week to process, Fraser said.

"Ninety-to to 95 per cent of labs are found on rental properties," he
pointed out. The bylaw presented, he said, will force landlords to be
more vigilant about the people they rent properties to.

"There are property owners out there that definitely put communities
at risk," Fraser said.

Councillors acknowledged Fraser's views and requested that the town's
staff work with the model bylaw presented by Fraser - a bylaw already
in place in other B.C. municipalities - with an eye to quick adoption.