BC HYDRO INSPECTIONS ABOUT SAFETY, NOT MARIJUANA, PROF SAYS

Residents Angry About Fees Threaten Lawsuit

A controversial B.C. law that allows municipalities to inspect homes
using large amounts of electricity has helped make neighbourhoods
safer and thwarted marijuana-grow operations, says a criminology
professor whose research triggered the law.

But his comments are unlikely to move outraged citizens in the
District of Mission, who are girding for a fight with their local
council and threatening a class-action lawsuit, complaining that
they've been slapped with unjust and excessive inspection fees and
unfairly labelled as criminals.

A change in 2006 to the B.C. Safety Standards Act gave municipalities
direct access to electricity-consumption data from the province's
electric utility, BC Hydro, and the ability to identify homes with
unusually high power usage.

Armed with that data, public-safety teams, consisting of building,
fire and electrical experts, have been inspecting some of these
properties after giving homeowners 24 to 48 hours notice. The
inspectors typically look for tampered wiring and plumbing,
overloaded circuits, mould buildup, pesticides, holes in walls and
extra ventilation ducts -- possible indications of a growing operation.

But even if one isn't found, which is the case most of the time,
authorities can still find that a home is in violation of safety
bylaws and require the homeowner to fix the problems.

"There has been a tendency for people to view this as nothing more
[than] a backdoor to get at grow ops. This a complete
misrepresentation," said Darryl Plecas, a criminology professor at
the University of the Fraser Valley.

While the bylaws have helped make a dent in the number of marijuana
growing operations, the driving force behind them is safety, said
Plecas, whose research has found that operations constitute a fire
hazard because of the way electrical wiring is configured.

"Should we ignore these safety hazards?" he asked.

BURDENING LAND TITLE

But critics say municipalities are unfairly tagging alleged
violators' property titles as a "controlled-substance property," even
when no plants are found.

"They are essentially fabricating grow ops," said Micheal Vonn,
policy director of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

"They are designating that a residence is a 'controlled-substance
property,' burdening the land title with an allegation of growing
drugs, devaluing the property."

The finding of mould, potting soil and holes in the wall are hardly
solid evidence of a marijuana growing operation, she said, adding
that one resident who was found in violation had been growing cucumbers.

On top of that, residents found in violation are assessed hefty fees
to cover the cost of inspecting their homes. In the District of
Mission, where much of the attention has been focused, the fee is $5,200.

"Somebody who goes through and inspects your house when you're buying
your house will charge a few hundred dollars," Vonn said.

Seventy-four residents in that community have signed on for a
class-action lawsuit, though a statement of claim has not yet been
filed. One local councillor has put forward a motion to repeal the
bylaw at Monday's council meeting.

But B.C. fire chiefs are standing by the inspection programs.

Ian Fitzpatrick, the Mission fire chief, said Friday that when
inspections started in 2008, his district's teams levelled inspection
fees in about 75 to 80 per cent of the cases. Now that number has
dropped to about 50 per cent.

"The perception we charge everybody is not true at all," he said.

Len Garis, the chief in Surrey, one of the first municipalities to do
inspections, said the vast majority of residents who have to pay the
fees never complain, an indication they were doing something they
shouldn't have been doing. The disclosure of a violation on a
property title could create a lasting "stigma," but prospective
homebuyers deserve to know if that property has ever been found in
violation of a bylaw, he said.