HIGHRISE SPROUTS 11TH GROW-OP

Parkdale Blaze Leads Firefighters To Marijuana Discovery

'I Won't Be Surprised If The Killing Starts Now,' Tenant Says

Eleven marijuana grow operations have been discovered in a troubled
Parkdale highrise in the past 13 days, the latest after firefighters
responded to a balcony fire early yesterday.

Toronto firefighters were called to West Lodge Ave., near Lansdowne Ave.
and Queen St. W., after a barbecue on a 14th floor balcony caught fire just
after midnight, sparking a three-alarm blaze.

Although the fire spread across two floors, no one was injured.

Firefighters came across the hidden grow-op in a different unit as they
completed a routine check of the 19-storey building to ensure all residents
had been evacuated.

The discovery comes a little more than a week after police found a
sophisticated marijuana grow operation that spanned two floors and involved
eight different units.

Residents are worried about living in a building where police suspect
organized crime is fuelling the illicit trade and rival gangs are trying to
stamp out competitors.

"It won't be it," Anna Thaker, a long-time resident of the building, said
of the most recent bust. "I won't be surprised if the killing starts now."

Police stumbled across the first in a series of grow operations March 8,
while investigating a break-in on the 18th floor of the building. When they
entered one two-bedroom unit, they found a complex ventilation system meant
to pump away the tell-tale smell of a grow-op and a nest of hydro wires
criss-crossing the apartment, even snaking down through a hole drilled in
the concrete floor to another grow-op in the apartment below.

The units were sparsely furnished, with just a couple stools, a stack of
air fresheners and mothballs, as well as dividers that separated the
growing area from the harvesting area from the packaging area. Police
seized about 800 marijuana plants and $50,000 worth of equipment.

Tips from residents led police to another two units, where they figured
growers were in the middle of dismantling their operation but had left
behind 200 mature plants.

There was enough soil in the units to "fill a farmer's field," said
Detective Howie Page.

Who rented the apartments is still a mystery.

"There's no security. It's worse than a motel. You can rent it for a month
and they are giving you the room for a month," Thaker said. "Management
should know who they're giving the apartment to."

The apartment complex, which contains 720 low-rent units and more than
2,000 tenants, usually makes headlines for its landlord-tenant disputes and
dilapidated condition. Although tenants tried to buy the building and
convert it into a co-op, a protracted legal wrangle ended with the building
going to its current owners, Phil, Jeff and Paul Wynn.