New law to target grow ops in BC

[Cure20]

Thought all the RCMP needed to search a marijuana grow-op was a couple of complaining neighbours and an odd smell?

You thought wrong.

RCMP need all the help they can get to crack down on and dismantle marijuana grow operations, said Kamloops' community policing officer, Cpl. Fran Bethell.

Legislation - which is likely to be introduced next spring and would provide police with information on BC Hydro clients who are using suspiciously high, or suspiciously low amounts of electricity - would be just one more handy tool, Bethell said.

As it stands, she said, "we have to have quite a bit of information to be able to obtain a search warrant.

"What the courts want to see is that there is a variety of indicators showing a reasonable person would believe, that at that moment, there are drugs in that house," before handing over a warrant.

So, the police draw on the tools already in their bag, which might include a witness who has been in the house, a distinctly marijuana-like smell, several fans running in the home and/or neighbour complaints.

Once those indicators spell out a grow operation, the RCMP take their suspicions to BC Hydro, which will then hand over the home's electricity readings so the RCMP can compare that homes electricity consumption to a similar one.

The new legislation, said Bethell, would put the onus on BC Hydro to provide odd electricity consumption to the authorities, without the RCMP having to do all the legwork first.

"It's a helpful piece of information to have," she said.

Often, said Kamloops Fire Insp. Jim Harker, police are alerted to grow operations after a fire has broken out.

Any help they get, he said, in detecting dangerous electrical use, could be a life-saver.

"It's a huge safety issue . . . By the time I get there it's after the fact."

It's not only a safety issue because of a fire, said Harker, but because of what firefighters don't know about the home.

"Not only do we not know what's going on in the building, we don't know if it's been booby-trapped.

"The people who have these things are trying to protect them and will go to great lengths to do that."

Harker's been a firefighter since 1955 and has noticed a sharp increase in the number of grow-op related fires his crews are responding to annually.

"It's become more of an issue in the last decade.

"It only takes one booby trap to kill a firefighter, so, if there's overuse ( of electricity ) that should definitely be made known to the proper authorities."