POLICE TO USE PROPERTY-STANDARDS LAWS AGAINST GROW HOUSES

HAMILTON - Hamilton police, building and health officials are taking a new,
hard-line approach to discourage home-grow marijuana operations.

Police are identifying health, safety and building code issues they find
during raids against houses filled with pot plants and notifying
appropriate city authorities. Those officials, in turn, are issuing work
orders which landlords must complete to make the homes habitable again. The
intent is to make landlords more accountable about their rented properties.

Similar measures are targeting homeowners who choose to live in their homes
while growing pot. Lien-type notices could be registered against
properties, alerting potential new owners to possible health concerns
because of chemicals used to grow the illegal crops.

The use of health and building department orders to crack down on marijuana
farm production is significant because it means police and the city have
another method to fight the booming indoor pot-farming industry.

Police and city officials are hopeful these measures may prevent landlords
and owners simply abandoning houses used as pot farms to become
neighbourhood eyesores and trouble-spots as landlords could be forced to
clean them up.

Three of four marijuana growing operations Hamilton police vice and drug
officers shut down on Wednesday were rental homes. In the four raids,
police seized marijuana they say could have realized more than $1 million.
Six young children living in three of the homes were taken into children's
aid society care.

One of the houses, a one-year-old home on Fortissimo Drive, had never been
lived in but was being rented by two Toronto area men strictly for
marijuana production.

Officers who entered the home found strands of black mould dangling from
moisture-sodden ceilings which also reek from the vapours of pesticides and
fertilizers used to grow the plants.

Mould is a health hazard and Sergeant Rick Wills, head of the Hamilton
police vice and drugs unit, said yesterday the interior of the
once-beautiful home will have to be gutted before anyone could live there
safely.

That, he said, is the sort of problem health and building officials can
order an owner to clean up before trying to rent or sell.

Wills said police and the city are also looking at having costs of
investigations registered as liens against properties as added financial
incentive to get landlords to avoid renting to grow operations.

As well, police are researching the feasibility of having a previous use
disclosure clause registered against property titles so unsuspecting buyers
don't get stuck with a mould and chemical saturated nightmare.

Ward 7 Hamilton Councillor Bill Kelly says grow houses are always a problem
after the busts happen.

The homes are boarded up but teens use them as local clubhouses and create
lots of neighbourhood problems.

The city can't act because trespassing has to be a complaint by the owner
(absentee in most cases).

The four raids Wednesday - all conducted under warrants alleging theft of
electricity - included a home on Fortissimo Drive, two on Rockway Court
just east of Limeridge Mall and and one on East 11th Street.

Police said the two operations on Rockway Court do not appear connected.
They seized 248 plants worth $248,000 from one home. A one-year-old child
in the home was turned over to the CAS. A man and woman, both 44, were
charged with cultivation and possession of a controlled substance for the
purpose of trafficking and proceeds of crime.

Further down the street, police found 547 plants worth about $550,000 and
$50,000 worth of equipment in a home where three small children lived
alongside the plants. The children age one, six and eight were taken into
CAS care.

Two men 31 and 30 years old have been charged with theft of hydro,
cultivation and possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of
trafficking.

Police were searching a home on Fortissimo Drive when two men arrived with
chemicals and equipment for their marijuana crop. They were arrested and
police seized $300,000 worth of marijuana in the basement. Two 29-year-old
men, one from Etobicoke and one from Mississauga, are charged with
cultivation and possession of a controlled substance.

Torstar News Service