ILLICIT DRUGS BYLAW APPEARS LESS POTENT

The city, after a lengthy delay, is close to passing a bylaw designed
to curb the production of illicit drugs such as marijuana and crystal
meth.

There is no question that the criminal production of these substances
is hurting Penticton. Most of the reported crimes in this community
relate to the production and distribution of these and other substances.

Their human toll, meanwhile, is immeasurable and we agree with city
councillors who praise the bylaw as another means to fight the
"scourge" of illegal drugs.

If everything goes according to plan, the bylaw should come into
effect next month, almost 20 months after the previous council first
considered introduction of such a bylaw. The source of this delay was
opposition from landlords who expressed concerns that the bylaw put
too much responsibility on them to police their properties.

"Sometimes you have no control over renters," said Karl Schrank during
the public hearing when council received input on the bylaw.

He and others referred specifically to stipulations that appeared to
shift the onus on property owners rather than the alleged offenders.

Those concerns were in hindsight legitimate and we are pleased that
the most excessive ones have been dropped from the revised bylaw.

The revised bylaw, for example, now leaves the inspection of rental
properties up to the discretion of landlords, rather than mandating
inspections every three months.

This approach will ideally also ease some of our concerns around the
privacy rights of tenants. But we also believe that the landlords who
raised those concerns in 2004 overstated their severity.

We note that some landlords expressed support for the original bylaw
because they realized the beneficial aspects of it. As former mayor
David Perry noted at the time, conscientious landlords will ensure
their properties are not used for illegal activities. We also note
that staff went out of their way to note the toughness of the original
bylaw, which appeared (at the very least) to satisfy the RCMP.

Also consider that the three current councillors who sat on the
previous council - Dan Ashton, Rory McIvor and John Vassilaki - voted
for the original bylaw.

If they were so concerned about it at the time, why did they approve
second and third reading even after the public hearing? We note that
the only person who voted against the bylaw at the time was Gary
Leaman, now no longer on council.

Yes, hindsight is perfect and additional information came forward. As
we noted above some of the concerns were legitimate for a number of
reasons. But the subtle flip-flop and staff's concession that the RCMP
would have preferred rules tougher than the ones found in the current
bylaw suggests that council bowed to pressure. Fair enough.

That is, for better or worse, the essence of representative democracy
and balancing individual rights against public interests has vexed
public officials since the Enlightenment. But add it all up and
suddenly council's stated commitment to winning the war on illicit
drugs has lost some strength.