CITY TO TIGHTEN POT HOUSE RULES

THE CITY is a couple of months away from finalizing its efforts to
provide a detailed alert to prospective home buyers about damage
caused by marijuana growing operations, a top municipal licensing
official says. Pam Coburn, head of Toronto's municipal licensing and
standards branch, said yesterday once the plan is completed, she
expects fire, health and other city departments to start issuing
orders demanding that owners of busted grow-op houses address problems
like mould. Prospective buyers would find out about the city's
decision to issue work orders when they looked at a property's title
information. People could then go to the city to find out details
about the orders.

Council is poised to look at the issue of marijuana grow houses next
week. Coburn added it would take changes to legislation to give the
city the authority to pass a bylaw stopping the sale of a former grow
house until it passed a safety inspection.