HOUSE ARREST

It's not a question 'if' a Richmond pot house will handed over to the
government, but rather 'when', say RCMP.

"It's not that we can't do it, but that we haven't had the case to do it,"
said Const. David Gray of Richmond's marijuana production unit. "We've been
close."

The issue came up earlier this month when 57-year-old Bich Ngoc Vu pleaded
guilty in Surrey provincial court to production of a controlled substance
and was sentenced to a 12-month conditional sentence. In addition, the
house Vu owned, listed at $439,000, was forfeited to the federal Crown as
offence-related property.

The forfeiture marked the first time in B.C. history a house has been
forfeited to the Crown in relation to a grow-op.

And there's a simple reason for those statistics, said Richmond federal
Crown lawyer, Gerry Sair.

"In 99 per cent of the cases, the house is leased (not owned) by the
grower," he said.

In order to obtain a forfeiture of the property, the owner of the home has
to be directly linked to the illegal crop inside.

In a bid to get tough on growers, home and other property seizures from
those linked to pot operations is a move the City of Richmond would like to
see more of, said Ted Townsend, city spokesman.

"That's an option we'd like to look at here," Townsend said.

It's been almost two years since the city joined forces with police, bylaw
enforcement and the fire department to form an integrated team - known as
operation Green Clean.

Now, said Townsend, it's time for the parties to meet again and come up
with tougher solutions. The City of Surrey charges an average of $1,500 to
property owners for every grow-op search warrant executed by police in
order to recover police and fire related expenses. That is just one option
Townsend said Richmond will consider.

"Right now we're figuring out the pros and cons of each of those
strategies," he said.