CITY PONDERS BANNING BIKER BUNKERS

Brockville needs an anti-bunker bylaw as a deterrent to organized crime,
especially in light of lenient sentences in drug-related court cases,
Police Chief Barry King told a city council committee Tuesday.

Court decisions are "not a deterrent" to criminals, King told the
environment, planning and development committee before it recommended city
council enact a bylaw outlawing excessive fortifications.

King later told The Recorder and Times he was referring to a January ruling
granting a conditional sentence to a man who ran a pot-growing operation
from a home west of the city.

In that case, Hoang Xuan Dang was granted a conditional sentence of two
years less a day to be served in the community.

But King pointed to lenient penalties in drug-related cases across Canada
to argue other means are necessary to deter organized crime.

Bylaws limiting fortifications on private property are aimed at ridding
communities of "biker bunkers," heavily fortified facilities aimed at
keeping law enforcement officials and rival crime gangs out of a property.

Such properties can use potentially lethal means of keeping others away and
typically include other illegal measures, such as hydro bypasses to avoid
electricity meters.

While biker bunkers are not a problem in Brockville, King warned the
committee criminal elements are looking to small rural communities as they
are pushed out of Quebec and the Toronto area. That includes not only biker
gangs but other forms of organized crime such as drug traffickers.

Last year, the chief noted, city police prevented one group from setting up
a clandestine drug lab in the city.

Section 133.1 of Ontario's Municipal Act allows municipalities to prohibit
"excessive fortification" of land.

The draft bylaw heading to council for approval, for instance, would
regulate surveillance equipment, such as video cameras, "night vision"
systems or electronic listening systems that can scan beyond the perimeter
of a property.

Exceptions to these provisions include financial institutions, jails and
police, military or city-owned facilities.

But planning department staff members stressed they are open to suggestions
and will be flexible in enforcing the bylaw, which leaves room for council
to make further exceptions upon application.

The idea is to tailor the bylaw to uses not now anticipated, planner
Jonathan Faurschou said.

Councillor Bob Huskinson, the committee chairman, asked what would happen
to people who put motion sensors on their garages.

Putting a security system on one's own home does not fall under the bylaw's
definition of "excessive," Faurschou replied.

"When you electrify the place, it's excessive," he said.

The full city council is expected to vote on the proposed bylaw next Tuesday.