GROW OPS MOVE INTO APARTMENT BUILDINGS

Marijuana grow operations in houses are nothing new, but recently
police have made arrests in a new locale - apartments.

Between April and June, New Westminster police located three grow ops
in city apartments.

While police aren't going so far as to call it a trend, they note that
grow ops in apartments are particularly dangerous.

A police report to the police board states: "This is an increased risk
to other occupants in the buildings. One of the grow ops was located
just two floors above a daycare centre."

Sgt. Paul Milne, who heads the drug squad, said the fact that three
were shut down in a relatively short time is probably due mainly
because police consider eliminating them a top priority.

Fire is one of the dangers associated with marijuana grow operations;
another is mould and unhealthy air.

"We know if it's in an apartment, it heightens the danger to the
public. We tend to step up our actions because of the dangers," Milne
said.

As for grow operations in general, Milne said the drug squad has
noticed a trend regarding size.

"The trend we're seeing is quite a few small grows all over the place,
rather than the large industrial ones. They're not quite as obvious."

He said police rely heavily on information from the public, who keep
officers informed of suspicious activity.

As for street level drug activity, deputy chief Mike Judd noted at the
July meeting of the police board that the number of drug offences in
June - 38 - was up over June last year, at 29.

Because drug offences become statistics only when an arrest is made,
Judd said the increase could be because of an increased police
presence downtown.

"It requires continued diligence, especially when Vancouver and Surrey
have set up operations and can put pressure on."

John Locke, past president of the New Westminster Downtown Business
Improvement Society, said he's noticed a little drug trafficking in
the last month or two around Hyack Square and 10th and Columbia.

"We've noticed a little more lately, but not anywhere near the extent
it was years ago. ... We're used to having nothing and it has popped
up a little in the last month or two months."

Locke noted that a New Westminster resident who works in Vancouver's
downtown eastside told him he's noticed that a person he often saw
there is now hanging out in downtown New Westminster.

"That makes us pretty darn sure they (drug traffickers) are coming
from the downtown eastside." He added, "I have every confidence our
police guys are going to get right on it if they haven't already."

Locke also mentioned that the benches in Hyack Square were removed
about a week ago because "they were being used more as beds than benches."

In 1999, when rampant crack cocaine dealing downtown was cleaned up,
the dealing moved into houses. Some neighbourhoods were plagued, day
and night, by constant streams of people heading in and out of such
houses. The complaints about "crack shacks" have now dwindled, Sgt.
Milne said.

Although the drug methamphetamine, which is gaining in popularity, has
become a problem in other jurisdictions, Milne says it hasn't here -
at least, not yet.

"I think there's going to be an increase," he predicted.

One arrest involving methamphetamine was made recently in the Brow of
the Hill, but the people accused were selling it, not producing it.
The production of methamphetamine can be particularly dangerous
because it involves volatile, explosive compounds.

Several years ago, police shut down, without incident, a
methamphetamine lab in Sapperton, but there has been none discovered
since.