Pubdate: Sat, 26 May 2007
Source: Maple Ridge News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2007 Maple Ridge News
Contact:  http://www.mapleridgenews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1328
Author: Monisha Martins, Staff Reporter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Marijuana - Canada)

AN INVASION OF PRIVACY

Pacing around his living room Wednesday, Richard Pitt can't believe
the city's safety inspection team is late.

He points to an inspection notice delivered to his home on 119 B
Avenue in Pitt Meadows.

The team was to arrive at 10:30 a.m. It is 45 minutes
late.

When two police cars, a fire department pick-up and bylaws truck
pulled up in front of the house to check for an illegal marijuana grow
operation, Pitt was ready.

"It's an invasion of privacy," he said.

"It has taken two hours out of my day."

Pitt's home was flagged as a potential public safety hazard by the
City of Pitt Meadows this week because of its high electricity
consumption.

A computer specialist who started Canada's first commercial Internet
Service Provider - Wimsey - he now dedicates his time to birds,
mainly bald eagles and video camera feeds of their nests.

Last month's bill from B.C. Hydro showed that Pitt used 3,100 kilowatt
hours of electricity. The month before he clocked 3,700 kWh after
installing cameras in Esquimalt to spy on an osprey nest.

He's had a business licence from the City of Pitt Meadows for 14
years. He has about 10 computers in his home, with accompanying hard
drives, monitors, servers and wires.

"They are comparing me to a typical suburbanite not someone whose
business is computers," Pitt said.

He received a 24-hour notice of inspection from the city on
Tuesday.

He asked the police officer and bylaw official to come inside that day
and see the computers for themselves. They refused.

On Wednesday, the Pitt Meadows safety inspection team searched his
home.

Pitt, his wife Shirley, a visitor and his son were told to wait
outside while three armed police officers, a bylaw enforcement
officer, an assistant fire chief and a building inspector checked for
the unusual spike in electricity and for the tell-tale signs of a pot
growing operation - faulty wiring and building code violations.

If the Pitts refused to let the team inside, they were warned B.C.
Hydro could cut off their power.

"I was just not given an option," Pitt said.

No marijuana or deficiencies were found at Pitt's home.

But, Pitt said on blog.pacdat.net, the lights went out around Pitt
Meadows an hour after the inspectors left.

According to a study released by the University College of the Fraser
Valley in 2004, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows are one of the fastest
growing areas in B.C. for marijuana cultivation.

The report showed that the number of marijuana cases in Maple Ridge
and Pitt Meadows since 1997 had risen 375 per cent, including 152
cases in 2003 - representing 3.4 per cent of all those in B.C. that
year.

To stem the lucrative illegal trade, the City of Pitt Meadows began a
pilot project to target marijuana grow operations through safety
inspections six months ago.

Under the province's Safety Standards Amendment Act, which came into
effect last June, B.C. Hydro can share domestic electrical consumption
information with municipal safety authorities.

A residence has abnormal consumption if it uses more than 93
kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity per day, or three-times the
average. An average home uses 31 kWh a day.

Once the information is received, Pitt Meadows staff research the
house, looking for inexplicable spikes in electricity and water use.

If the information gleaned points to a possible grow-op, a 24-hour
notice of inspection is posted on the house.

RCMP officers accompany the team on all inspections and clear the
house if a grow-op is found.

A no-occupancy notice is posted at the house if an electrical bypass,
mould or furnace modifications are found. Homeowners bear the cost of
the inspection which can total more than $3,000.

Leslie Elchuk, Pitt Meadows bylaw enforcement officer said Wednesday's
search was to ensure public safety.

"We received data from B.C. Hydro that there was excessive hydro
consumed at that house," she explained.

"We do a thorough work-up of every single property before we knock on
the door and ask for an inspection."

Before an inspection, Elchuk researches the square footage of the
home, what it looks like and if it has a business licence.

In Pitt's case, his licence was for a "business office," Elchuk
said.

The inspection team also drives by the house and snaps
photographs.

All the vehicles parked on the property are run through a database by
police.

The City of Pitt Meadows has inspected 34 houses since it started the
pilot project.

Of those, "deficiencies" like faulty wiring, plumbing and building
alterations were found in 25.

Evidence of a marijuana grow operation was found in just one of the
properties, Elchuk added.

"If there was something happening there and it's gone and things are
all in place that's what we want," she said.

"It is really, really good. It is making a difference. We have a safer
community."

In the same six month period, RCMP busted......???? marijuana grow
operations in Pitt Meadows.

A report on the pilot safety inspection project to Pitt Meadows
council is expected by June.

Elchuk said it will be up to council to decide if the safety
inspection become a permanent bylaw tool.

Targeting marijuana grow ops through safety inspections was pioneered
by the City of Surrey.

A 90-day pilot project in 2005 "rendered safe" and temporarily
disrupted 118 marijuana grow operations in Surrey.

In that same 90-day period, the Surrey RCMP detachment took down a
total of 75 grow operations.

According to the Surrey fire department, a house with a grow op is 24
times more likely than one without to go up in smoke.

Following Surrey's success, similar bylaws have sprung in Port
Coquitlam, Coquitlam and Abbotsford.

The B.C. Civil Liberties Association, opposes such bylaws and the
legislative scheme that brought in the partnership with B.C. Hydro.

"You shouldn't be doing through the back door what you can't do
through the front door," said Micheal Vonn, policy director for the
civil liberties association.

"This is clearly a means of circumventing the proper warrant
procedure."

Instead of using safety inspections as a ruse to enter a home, Vonn
suggests bylaw officials should telephone or send a letter to query
the resident's unusual pattern of electricity consumption.

"Call me crazy, if you have a query, what is with the SWAT team at the
door and a 24-hour notice?" Vonn said. "It completely undermines the
notion that there is a benign regulatory purpose behind this. We have
heard this argument in the war on drugs and the war on terror. If they
say the word safety or security, you are just suppose to roll over and
show your belly."

The civil liberties association has had several complaints about the
Safety Standards Amendment Act and the inspection bylaws it has spawned.

"We are not ruling out a court challenge at all," Vonn said.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake