LANDLORDS TO PAY FOR POLICE

A New Bylaw Would Have Property Owners Pay RCMP Costs in Busting
Tenants' Grow Ops

Powell River RCMP have asked the municipality to adopt a bylaw which
would give it authority to recoup from property owners expenses
incurred in investigating and closing down marijuana grow operations.
RCMP Staff Sergeant Larry Misner wrote a letter to the municipality
outlining the extra expenses incurred when police investigate grow
ops.

"These types of investigations are not only costly but very time
consuming and have a negative impact on our policing budget," he
wrote. "Valuable resources which are tied up with this type of
investigation take away from other areas of policing such as traffic
enforcement and crime prevention."

As an example, Misner told The Peak, Powell River police recently shut
down grow ops in five houses. "We had to call people in on days off
and it's an expense for overtime, and as a result it's a cost incurred
by the municipality," he explained. "For example, if I had to call
people in for 40 hours' overtime, the cost could come to $5,000."

In addition to overtime, the police have to store the equipment seized
at the grow op. Storing equipment until a trial is finished could cost
up to $1,000.

"Those are all the expenses that are incurred as a result of the
investigation," Misner said. "If the bylaw was adopted, the
municipality could go back to the homeowner and say it's going to cost
you $6,000 for those police expenses."

The bylaw would apply to homeowners who don't live in Powell River,
Misner also said. "Landlords have to take some responsibility in
regards to doing proper checks on the people, references on the people
they rent to. It puts a little more onus on the landlord to do some
checks on who they're going to rent to."

Misner included with his letter a copy of a bylaw from the City of
Surrey, called the Surrey Community Improvement and Controlled
Substance Manufacture Bylaw, as an example of the kind the
municipality could pass. He stated in his letter that other
municipalities and regional districts have identified grow-op
investigations as a concern and have enacted bylaws to assist in
recouping some of the policing costs.

Misner's letter was on the agenda at the July 15 council meeting.
Councillors passed a motion directing staff to prepare a report
regarding a controlled substance manufacture bylaw for the August
committee-of-the-whole meeting.