New Bylaw Requires Landlords to Check for Grow Operations

[Powder_Reality]

New Bylaw Would Compel Landlords To Check Their
(01 Jul 2006) Vancouver Sun British Columbia
LANGLEY - Landlords might be the new front-line soldiers against pot growers under a proposed bylaw.

Four yearly inspections by a landlord should be enough to disrupt the careers of would-be marijuana growers in Langley.

That's what Township councillors are hoping, after they sent a new anti-pot bylaw to public hearing.

The bylaw will require landlords to inspect properties at least once every three months to check for methamphetamine labs and grow operations.

Because it takes about four months to grow a crop of marijuana from seedling to harvest, the inspections should catch growers in the act, or drive them away. If a landlord does the regular inspections and discovers a growing operation, he or she is off the hook for any police costs.

The bylaw also requires property owners to tell any potential future buyers that the property once held a growing operation or drug lab.

Councillor Steve Ferguson called it a "the good, the bad and the ugly" bylaw. It should separate good landlords -- those who already check their properties -- from the bad absentee landlords who allow the drug production to go on, he said.

*Personally SWIM doesn't particularly like the idea of landlords performing mandatory apartment inspections. SWIM wouldn't care too much about his neighbour growing a personal supply of marijuana or mushrooms out of their apartment, but SWIM would care quite a lot about sleeping next to a meth lab full of toxic and explosive chemicals. SWIM is rather split on whether this is a good or bad bylaw.