MARIJUANA GROW-OPS BOOMING IN SUBURBS

Business Community Feeling The Pinch From Soaring Costs Of Home Operations

EDMONTON (CP) -- Usually, says Don Dickson of the Calgary Real Estate
Board, only the Christmas lunch is so well-attended.

But last month, 526 real estate agents showed up at one of the board's
seminars. The topic?

Marijuana grow-ops.

"It was pretty amazing," said Mr. Dickson, president of the board. "It's
obviously a topic of great concern."

Real estate agents aren't the only ones alarmed by the increasing number of
quiet, suburban homes being used to grow lucrative crops of high-quality
marijuana. No longer solely the concern of law enforcement, the rapid
spread of such grow-ops is changing the way agencies from insurers to
municipalities do business.

"What originally started as a B.C. problem has spread Canada-wide," said
Dave Way, standards and practices co-ordinator for the Insurance Bureau of
Canada.

It is becoming a familiar sequence from coast to coast, said Constable
Richard Baylin, RCMP national co-ordinator for marijuana grow-ops: the
empty house on the nice suburban street, the quiet new neighbours, the cop
cars, the TV crews.

Then it's back to the empty home, this time full of toxic mould from high
humidity, its foundation chipped away to get at power lines, its drywall
damp and crumbling.

As far as grow-ops are concerned, British Columbia, Quebec and Ontario are
"the big three," Constable Baylin said.

A March RCMP report estimates the number of Ontario grow-ops increased 250
per cent between 2000 and 2002, a year in which there may have been up to
15,000 of them active in the province.

Now they're showing up in Halifax. Winnipeg has called Constable Baylin's
office for advice.

A little over a year ago, seven homes on the same upscale Calgary suburban
street were busted. Edmonton has increased the number of police officers
working on grow-ops to six from four.

Experts offer a variety of reasons for the increase, from organized crime
exploiting a high-profit enterprise to low prison terms for those caught.
But for Canadian business, the bottom line is that it is starting to affect
the bottom line.

Real estate agents, who may unwittingly sell a former grow-op or sell to
someone wanting to build one, may have the most at stake.

"A realtor is the one stuck in the middle," Bob Linney of the Real Estate
Association of Canada said.

Agents are obliged to disclose anything that may affect the integrity of
the house, he said. But sellers might not tell their agent everything and a
house's grow-op history may be several buyers in the past.

And telling a buyer his or her prospective home used to be a grow-op may be
slanderous unless a criminal conviction was obtained.

"The realtor walks a very fine line," Mr. Linney said.

The B.C. Real Estate Association now includes a clause on its listing form
that specifically asks the seller if he knows if the building has been used
as a grow-op.

The national association now publishes a 24-page book on how to recognize a
grow-op house, or spot a possible customer who plans to build one.

"If someone's more interested in the basement than the kitchen, that could
be the first sign," said Mr. Linney, who has distributed 50,000 copies of
the book.

Most Canadian insurers now put specific riders in their homeowner policies
that absolve them of any liability if a property has been used as a
grow-op, Mr. Way said.

Power companies are also hurting from the growing grow-ops.

Ontario police estimate Ontario Hydro lost anywhere from $3-million to
$36-million a month in 2002 from stolen power, losses that get passed on to
other consumers.

As well, grow-op homes are typically bought with little cash down. A few
crop cycles are usually enough to create serious damage, and mortgage
holders lose big when the property is sold.

The Insurance Bureau estimates the average repair bill for a former grow-op
house is between $60,000 and $80,000. A profitable sideline has appeared
for environmental consulting companies in certifying the rehabilitation of
former grow-op houses.

Municipalities are also starting to feel the strain.

"The workload is becoming an issue," said Glenn Jenkins, an environmental
health inspector with the City of Edmonton. His job is supposed to centre
on inner-city housing, but since January he has been inspecting former
grow-ops on an almost weekly basis.

"The first thing you notice is the smell," said Mr. Jenkins. "It has a kind
of skunk-cabbage smell."

He said he is training a second inspector to deal with the problem.

The spread of grow-ops comes at the same time as Canadians are becoming
increasingly liberal in their attitude to marijuana use.

But police officers such as Corporal Lorne Adamitz, a member of Edmonton's
so-called Green Team of municipal and RCMP officers, strive to separate the
two issues.

"It's not a victimless crime," he said. "It's not just somebody wanting to
smoke a joint."