POT PARADISE

What effects are the massive marijuana grow-operations having on the
city and its neighbourhoods?

Behind the tin-foiled windows and underneath the living room devoid
of any furnishings, a dangerous operation is being conducted.

It's an operation that often goes undetected by police and it's one
that is very lucrative to the organized criminals who run it.

But it's also an operation that leaves a lasting impact on the homes
the criminals take over and the communities they inhabit.

Last week, the Airdrie RCMP uncovered the biggest marijuana
growing-operations the city has ever seen.

A raid on a Morningside home Nov. 24 resulted in the seizure of 661
marijuana plants, worth an estimated $826,000.

In recent weeks, local cops have unearthed several marijuana
grow-operations in the city that took nearly $2 million worth of
marijuana off the streets.

And while it would seem Airdrie is becoming more susceptible to
marijuana grow-ops, one Mount Royal University (MRU) professor says
the problem isn't an Airdrie specific one.

"The reality is that (grow-ops) are probably in any community that
meets a certain kind of profile," explains Doug King, an associate
professor in Department of Justice Studies at MRU. "Grow-operations
will generally hit, more often than not, new areas."

King says it's in those newer neighbourhoods that most inhabitants
clear out for work during the weekday.

Couple that with what King calls, 'a 1950s mentality' towards how
some residents view their own neighbourhood, new areas seem to be the
perfect location for organized criminals to set up shop.

"We might have a 1950s idea of what's taking place in a neighbourhood
during the daytime in the middle of the week," he explains. "The idea
is that someone is home that can look after your neighbours and spot
anything unusual.

"Relying on neighbours to spot something going on is probably a 1950s idea."

It's all about social cohesion, King says, and the criminals know
that "" newer areas aren't socially cohesive when residents first move in.

"That just part of the reality of large, suburbia types of
communities where people don't know one another and don't choose to
know one another," King says. "That's just the way life is these days."

Sgt. Tom Hanson heads the Alberta Law Enforcement Response Teams'
(ALERT) Green Team South, which is mandated to locate, disrupt and
dismantle organized crime activity, specifically grow-operations, in
the province.

Working as an integrated unit comprised of Calgary Police Service
members and RCMP members, the specialized unit has been kept busy
busting local grows ops in Airdrie.

Hanson maintains marijuana grow-ops aren't only found in new communities.

"We find them in established areas, in older areas and in rural
locations," Hanson says. "(These criminals) are opportunistic ""
they're looking to put their grow-ops up in a whole bunch of
different areas, wherever they think they can get away with it.

"These are all associated to organized crime "" these aren't just mom
and pop operations."

But what bothers Hanson the most is the blatant disregard for the
safety of the neighbourhood these criminals set up shop in.

"They have no regard for the safety of the community and the well
being of the neighbourhood," Hanson says. "These just aren't the
types of operations that are victimless "" they leave a trail of
destruction in their wake."

Hanson pointed to a massive fire in Calgary's Citadel neighbourhood
in December 2009 that was sparked by a grow operation and burned down
five homes.

Hanson says grow-ops often leave lasting problems for the homes
they're set up in "" mould, structural issues, electrical problems
and plumbing concerns are common repercussions and the residences are
often condemned by health inspectors.

The problem, King says, is locating and unearthing the grow-operations.

"They've got this process down incredibly well in terms of how to set
up a house, how to do it, and how to keep it (undetected)," King
says. "You could be living beside a grow operation and not know
something is going on."

And that's why marijuana grow-ops can be hard to track down and expose.

"I can't give you a sense of how many grow-operations there are in a
community like Airdrie or even a community like Calgary, but you can
be darn sure there's a heck of a lot more that are being operated
that are never, ever detected by the police or neighbours," King says.

It's part of what King calls, 'the dark figure of crime.'

"We don't know how much crime is going on out there," King says. "We
only know the stuff that we catch."

Airdrie RCMP Const. Robert Frizzell says the RCMP's Crime Reduction
Unit (CRU), along with the General Investigation Section (GIS), is
combating the issue locally in Airdrie.

But it comes at a cost.

"Grow-ops cost an extensive amount of resources for us because we
have to put surveillance on that house for an extended period of
time," Frizzell says. "We have to ensure officer and public safety
and that requires multiple members."

Frizzell says introducing the CRU and GIS to specifically target this
type of criminal activity, among other concerns, has made a drastic
impact in recent months.

"These grows have been here, we just haven't had the resources or
time to shut them down," he says. "With these specialized units, we
can dedicate resources to shutting down these grows and making our
neighbourhoods safer.

"At the end of the day, it costs a lot of money but it goes towards
making Airdrie a safer place with safer homes and safer communities."

Both Hanson and Frizzell say police will continue to try and tackle
the marijuana grow op problem in Airdrie.

"The more we're looking the more we're finding," Hanson says. "We're
making efforts to locate and dismantle these operations, make the
neighbourhoods safe and get the houses that they're growing marijuana
in remediated properly so they're ultimately made safe for human
habitation again."