Pubdate: Fri, 21 Jul 2000 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: The Vancouver Sun 2000 Contact: 200 Granville Street, Ste.#1, Vancouver BC V6C 3N3 Fax: (604) 605-2323 Website: http://www.vancouversun.com/ Author: Frances Bula CITY WANTS TO QUADRUPLE FIGHT AGAINST POT GROWERS Vancouver police and city staff face a huge backlog of complaints about marijuana-growing operations Faced with an estimated 4,000 marijuana-growing operations in Vancouver, city staff are asking council for extra help in combatting a problem they say is creating hazardous houses across the city. The city has been running a "Grow Busters" pilot project since February with police and B.C. Hydro, and has shut down 114 operations between March 6 and June 23 with a team of nine police officers and five city officials. The city staff - electrical and fire inspectors - accompany police to suspected grow sites. But the team is swamped, says the city's manager of community services, Jacquie Forbes-Roberts. As well, staff want to establish the project as a permanent operation for at least a year. The team is planning to quadruple the number of weekly inspections they do to try to deal with a backlog of complaints. "This has been a very successful procedure to deal with a very difficult problem," said Forbes-Roberts, who stressed that complaints by neighbours of growing operations have driven the program, particularly in the Renfrew/Collingwood area. But a report from her department to city council asking for five more staff members, coming up for approval next week, observes that "grow operators show no preference for a particular neighbourhood. Any house on any block may be potentially a grow operation." For the city, one of the most successful parts of the program is that it pays for itself. The costs of staff - estimated at $250,000 - are recovered by the $309 fee that is charged to landlords in order to obtain approval to re-occupy the building, and another $200 to reconnect their electrical and gas services. (As well, a city inspection team goes through the house before it is re-opened, noting any other irregularities that have to be fixed before the house can be re-occupied.) Forbes-Roberts said the fees are as much a part of the program as shutting down the operations. "They are an incentive for landlords to be more vigilant." The report details some of the problems that have been created by the rapid growth in the number of marijuana-growing operations. The fire department was, for a while, averaging two fire calls a month related to growing operations. Growers divert exhaust gas vents for the furnace and hot-water tank to enhance the growing process, which creates the possibility of a carbon monoxide build up. And growers sometimes use propane for fuel. "One 20-pound bottle of propane in a confined space is equal to 100 sticks of dynamite," the report says. The problems, besides the obvious, is that nearby residents - and sometimes those in the same building - may be in danger but not realize it. The report notes that one family living upstairs in a house didn't know the renter downstairs had started a growing operation. When a fire started, the renter took off without telling the family upstairs. Forbes-Roberts said it's important to try to catch growing operations quickly, because the longer they're in place, the more damage gets done. "Sometimes we go in and whole floors are chainsawed out." Vancouver police spokeswoman Constable Anne Drennan said police have been unable to keep up with the increasing number of marijuana-growing operations. She said police at any given moment have dozens of solid tips in hand that they do not have the resources to act on. City staff play an integral role on the force's crackdown on growing operations, Drennan said, and she said police are hopeful the city will find the funds for more support workers. "If there were additional (city) inspectors available, it would certainly assist our teams greatly," she said. - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart