Surrey grow-ops drop by nearly 82 per cent
ELAINE O'CONNOR, The Province :
Tuesday, February 07, 2012 7:17 PM
Read it on Global News: Global BC | Surrey grow-ops drop by nearly 82 per cent
In just four years, Surrey has seen an 82 per cent reduction in grow-ops within city limits.
The success of its municipal inspections program has been so great that Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis estimated there are only a few hundred indoor grow ops left in city limits, compared to more than a thousand a few years ago.
“We need to be looking ahead if we want to solve this problem in our neighbourhoods,” he said. “It’s not about marijuana as far as the fire service is concerned, it’s about unsafe homes.”
But Surrey’s success, he warned might be displacing the problem into other B.C. communities.
Surrey city council heard Monday night that their Surrey Electrical Fire Safety Inspection program has seen an 81.6 per cent reduction in confirmed residential grow-ops from 2007 to 2011.
The program began as a pilot in 2005 after the city enacted its controlled substance bylaw.
The program has monitored residential electricity, relying on BC Hydro information and tip line reports to check on properties.
It is overseen by the Surrey fire department, the RCMP, and the city’s bylaw and electrical inspections departments.
In 2005-6, they investigated 127 grow-ops. In 2007, just after the province began allowing municipalities to request Hydro data, the city dealt with 445 operations. In 2008 they busted 107 grow-ops, 144 in 2009, 117 in 2010, and 82 in 2011.
And it has helped children out of dangerous environments: between 2005 and 2008, 234 children were found in grow-op locations.
“We’re providing an administrative solution to the problem of marijuana grow operations, instead of relying solely on the criminal justice system,” Mayor Dianne Watts said in a statement following council.
“The end result is that we’ve shut down thousands of operations, which are a major public safety risk and fire hazard,” she added.
Garis said the program has contributed to a “significant decline in residential fires throughout the city.” But he added the crackdown has made growers cagier. Now, most steal power to avoid detection through Hydro records, and smart metering will soon make it impossible to tamper with power.
The team has launched a public awareness campaign, alerting 21,000 homeowners to report suspicious homes in the area.
The group is also lobbying to get Canada Revenue Agency to go after grow-op homeowners, to regulate the sale of hydroponic lights, and to require medical marijuana growers register their locations.
“Medical marijuana operations, they are not getting inspections, they are not getting zoning and they are becoming blights in our neighbourhoods,” Garis said.
One of the unintended consequences of the municipal crackdown on grow-ops — in Surrey, as well as Richmond, Coquitlam, Langley Township, Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford and Mission — is that it’s likely displaced grow-ops into regions with less enforcement.
A report Garis co-authored with University of the Fraser Valley criminology professor Darryl Plecas in 2011 showed grow-ops in the Cariboo — 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, Quesnel and Prince George — spiked from 1997 to 2010. The report found “the number of marijuana grow operations coming to the attention of police per 1,000 population in Prince George was essentially twice the provincial average, while Quesnel and Williams lake had six times as many and 100 Mile House had 30 times as many.”
The success of its municipal inspections program has been so great that Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis estimated there are only a few hundred indoor grow ops left in city limits, compared to more than a thousand a few years ago.
“We need to be looking ahead if we want to solve this problem in our neighbourhoods,” he said. “It’s not about marijuana as far as the fire service is concerned, it’s about unsafe homes.”
But Surrey’s success, he warned might be displacing the problem into other B.C. communities.
Surrey city council heard Monday night that their Surrey Electrical Fire Safety Inspection program has seen an 81.6 per cent reduction in confirmed residential grow-ops from 2007 to 2011.
The program began as a pilot in 2005 after the city enacted its controlled substance bylaw.
The program has monitored residential electricity, relying on BC Hydro information and tip line reports to check on properties.
It is overseen by the Surrey fire department, the RCMP, and the city’s bylaw and electrical inspections departments.
In 2005-6, they investigated 127 grow-ops. In 2007, just after the province began allowing municipalities to request Hydro data, the city dealt with 445 operations. In 2008 they busted 107 grow-ops, 144 in 2009, 117 in 2010, and 82 in 2011.
And it has helped children out of dangerous environments: between 2005 and 2008, 234 children were found in grow-op locations.
“We’re providing an administrative solution to the problem of marijuana grow operations, instead of relying solely on the criminal justice system,” Mayor Dianne Watts said in a statement following council.
“The end result is that we’ve shut down thousands of operations, which are a major public safety risk and fire hazard,” she added.
Garis said the program has contributed to a “significant decline in residential fires throughout the city.” But he added the crackdown has made growers cagier. Now, most steal power to avoid detection through Hydro records, and smart metering will soon make it impossible to tamper with power.
The team has launched a public awareness campaign, alerting 21,000 homeowners to report suspicious homes in the area.
The group is also lobbying to get Canada Revenue Agency to go after grow-op homeowners, to regulate the sale of hydroponic lights, and to require medical marijuana growers register their locations.
“Medical marijuana operations, they are not getting inspections, they are not getting zoning and they are becoming blights in our neighbourhoods,” Garis said.
One of the unintended consequences of the municipal crackdown on grow-ops — in Surrey, as well as Richmond, Coquitlam, Langley Township, Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford and Mission — is that it’s likely displaced grow-ops into regions with less enforcement.
A report Garis co-authored with University of the Fraser Valley criminology professor Darryl Plecas in 2011 showed grow-ops in the Cariboo — 100 Mile House, Williams Lake, Quesnel and Prince George — spiked from 1997 to 2010. The report found “the number of marijuana grow operations coming to the attention of police per 1,000 population in Prince George was essentially twice the provincial average, while Quesnel and Williams lake had six times as many and 100 Mile House had 30 times as many.”
© Global News. A division of Shaw Media Inc., 2012.
Read it on Global News: Global BC | Surrey grow-ops drop by nearly 82 per cent
