RICHMOND STARS IN GROW-OP DOCUMENTARY

The risks and dangers of owning a rental property in Richmond will be
shown to a Hong Kong television audience in a documentary about
marijuana growing operations currently being filmed here.

Chris Lincoln, senior producer and reporter for Television Broadcasts
Limited, Hong Kong's biggest television station, was filming in
Richmond and Vancouver this week in hopes of illustrating the problem
to the overseas audience.

Lincoln is a Vancouver native who has been living and working in Hong
Kong for the past nine years. The documentary will be shown in
English, and possibly also in Cantonese.

"The idea was to comment about the risks offshore landlords are
running. Are you running a risk? Are you aware of the dangers?" RCMP
Cpl. Sanjaya Wijayakoon, head of the Richmond detachment's five-member
marijuana squad, said the documentary could help local police in their
efforts.

"Hopefully it will open the eyes of some of the landlords
abroad."

Between 50 and 70 per cent of local grow ops are either in homes owned
by a Hong Kong native--living either here or abroad--or run by a
gardener of Hong Kong descent, Wijayakoon estimates.

RCMP believe that in a few cases, property managers are turning a
blind eye towards grow ops, and some are actually profiting directly
from them.

One local real estate agent was arrested in connection with a local
grow op bust in recent months.

"It's not the majority by any stretch," Wijayakoon said of property
managers.

The RCMP believe there are as many as 500 marijuana grow ops currently
in operation in Richmond.

While the number of grow-op busts has been on the increase in the last
few years, so has the level of violence.

As first revealed in The Richmond Review last weekend, police suspect
as many as 20 groups of masked bandits, some well-armed, routinely
case local homes looking for secretly grown crops of B.C. bud.

It's this battle between marijuana growers and these so-called 'grow
rippers' that has police worried for the public's safety.

One local property owner, who wished to remain anonymous, said she is
at wit's end in her battle with a neighbouring house notorious for
being a grow-op over the last few years. The house, on No. 2 Road, has
on several occasions been the victim of break-ins by grow rippers and
has seen its fair share of violence.

Police say the steps she's taken, including querying people when they
walk onto the property, are exactly correct. Yet the house continues
to be a concern, most recently the victim of an attempted break-in
just two weeks ago.

Coun. Derek Dang, vice chair of the Community Safety Committee, said
the escalating violence and the proliferation of the marijuana grow
ops, begs for the city to take another hard look at the battle.

Former Richmond mayor Greg Halsey-Brandt struck a marijuana task force
more than two years ago, but at the time the chief concern was shoddy
wiring resulting in fires. Now, police say, it's the violence that is
their top concern in terms of public safety. "I'm very concerned for
the safety of the community," Dang said. "We don't have strong enough
fines and penalties from the criminal side of things."

Dang pledged to raise the issue again at the next community safety
meeting, and said stakeholders, such as police, the public and
property managers, will be invited to give their input.