IS RICHMOND LOSING THE B.C. BUD BATTLE?

A co-ordinated Lower Mainland effort may help in the battle to stomp out
marijuana grow operations, police told councillors during Tuesday's
community safety committee meeting.

Councillors asked RCMP brass about recent reports of increased violence
involving marijuana grow ops and asked what further steps the city can take
to aid in the battle to reduce the estimated 500 grow ops currently in
operation in the city.

RCMP Insp. Tony Mahon said police are appreciative of council's work to
date in passing bylaws aimed specifically at homes that are repeatedly used
for grow-ops. He said police are considering establishing a coordinated
system at the inspector rank that would enable RCMP detachments throughout
the Lower Mainland to more effectively work together.

"Obviously, the problem is bigger than Richmond," RCMP Cpl. Peter Thiessen
said.

By having a senior officer facilitate overall co-ordination in RCMP
jurisdictions, this would enable the problem to be tackled from a more
global perspective, he said.

Aside from greater co-ordination and exchange of intelligence information,
the potential would exist that manpower could be shared between areas,
Thiessen added.

Richmond currently has a dedicated five-member marijuana production unit,
known as the Green Team, but they are finding themselves overwhelmed by the
number of grow-ops in the city. Aside from the proliferation, however, is
the troubling increase in violence, with some bandits brandishing sawed-off
shotguns as they case local neighbourhoods looking for grow-ops to raid.
Police estimate there may be as many as 20 groups routinely working in
Richmond.

Staff Sgt. Al Duplante, in charge of the plainclothes unit, told
councillors Tuesday that officers are busting two to three grow operations
per week. Each of the five members in the Green Team are handling 20 to 30
potential sites each. "It's staggering the scope of what we're dealing with."

There have been numerous cases over the last few years in which these
grow-rips have resulted in people either being shot, assaulted, injured, or
even killed, as was the case with a grow-rip gone wrong last September.

Richmond resident and retired RCMP officer David Patterson told councillors
it's time for the city to take more action to stem the increasing violence
in local neighbourhoods.

He suggested steps that the city, police and the Crown should take to rid
the city of "this terrible scourge and the word will spread throughout the
region that Richmond is not the place to carry on this activity and think
that you'll get away with it," Patterson told councillors. "So let us join
together...and take back our streets."

RCMP Supt. Ward Clapham suggested that houses up for sale be required to
declare to prospective buyers if it had previously housed a grow-op. This
would make a house more difficult to sell and would make it uncomfortable
for homeowners willfully renting to marijuana growers.

"Is there a mechanism in place through the legal system where we could go
after repeat offenders?" Coun. Evelina Halsey-Brandt asked. "Are the courts
supportive of the hard work of the police?"

Thiessen told the committee that growers are not concerned about the legal
ramifications of being busted, and consider that the cost of doing business.

Coun. Rob Howard asked what can be done to "get out of this vicious little
cycle", where growers simply go to court, get released and then are back
growing again.

"As a measured outcome, it's a failure," Howard said of police efforts to date.

But Clapham said the Green Team isn't simply shutting down these grow ops
and seizing the equipment and crop. Officers are looking for those higher
up the chain, in an effort to arrest and charge those individuals.