surrey
Unreasonable searches of homes in B.C. must stop
Editorial, Globe and Mail
Unreasonable searches of homes, without judicial warrants, continue in several British Columbia municipalities. As a semi-random method for looking for marijuana grow-ops, routine inspections – typically with RCMP officers in the background, ready to pounce – have been diverted from their proper purposes. High electricity bills are being treated as grounds for suspicion that a criminal business is being carried on in a household. Read more »
Man's home 'invaded' by government search of fish tanks
By Kathy Tomlinson, CBC News
A B.C. man who raises tropical fish said his home and privacy were invaded when local enforcement agencies knocked on his door while looking for a marijuana grow operation, and then forced him to pay for an electrical inspection and upgrade his fish-tank operation.
“I felt violated,” said Mike Baynes, 67, from Surrey, B.C. “When they came in here and saw no grow-op, I think they should have said ‘I’m sorry Mike,’ and then turned around and walked out.”
Baynes is one of 128 Surrey residents who don’t have grow operations, but were nevertheless subjected to searches and electrical repair orders in recent months because they use a lot of hydro. Read more »
Surrey continues push to have medical pot growers get permits
BY ELAINE O'CONNOR, THE PROVINCE
Surrey wants Health Canada to change its medical marijuana law to compel growers to obtain city bylaw licenses.
Council endorsed a resolution Monday night to put forward a resolution at this year’s UBCM conference to get the federal government to tighten medical marijuana regulations at the municipal level.
Surrey recently passed a bylaw to require growers to register at city hall and obtain permits, not only to ensure community safety, but to make it easier for RCMP to distinguish legal from illegal marijuana grow operations.
The city wants to ensure that growers get local permits that ensure safety regulations are met before getting federal approval to begin operations. Read more »
No more growing medical marijuana at home in Surrey
By: Lara Fominoff, News 1130
SURREY (NEWS1130) - If you have a medical marijuana permit, grow your own plants and live in Surrey, you will soon have some new rules to follow.
Mayor Dianne Watts says it's all about public safety. "They shouldn't be in residential areas, they need to be in other areas."
Until now, Watts says there were no rules on where people could grow their pot plants, or what safety precautions need to be taken.
"So you don't have the dispensaries, stand alone dispensaries, you don't have those, the production of medicinal marijuana within neighborhoods. There's got to be some criteria in terms of just fire safety issues." Read more »
City of Surrey wants to know if you're sick
By Charlie Smith, Georgia Straight
Surrey mayor Dianne Watts often receives fawning media coverage, but sometimes the truth slips through.
This is one of those days.
The City of Surrey will escalate its money-losing war on drugs and create a stigma for residents who are eligible to use medicinal marijuana.
That's because council has endorsed a proposed bylaw requiring licensed medical-marijuana consumers and growers to register for permits from the city.
Yes, sick people in Surrey could soon be forced to disclose to city hall that they're ill.
According to the proposed bylaw, if they don't, the gendarmes will fine people no less than $100 and no more than $5,000, plus the cost of prosecution. Read more »
NDP candidate fumes over 'dumping' of anti-gang funding in Surrey
BY TOM ZYTARUK, SURREY NOWSURREY - The federal NDP candidate for Surrey North is calling on Tory MP Dona Cadman to fight to save a Surrey youth gang prevention program that will run out of funding by the end of March.
The Youth Gang Prevention Fund is a transfer payment program through which the Surrey school district has received $888,000 to help prevent school children from joining criminal youth gangs.
Jasbir Sandhu, who'll be running against Cadman next election under the NDP banner, called on the MP to ensure the government doesn't let the funding lapse.
Judge cuts Surrey marijuana grower a break
BY TOM ZYTARUK, SURREY NOWMETRO VANCOUVER - A Supreme Court judge has cut a Surrey pot grower a break by ordering that he forfeit only a third of his interest in his house to the government, rather than the entire property.
Trung Van Nguyen pleaded guilty to growing marijuana inside the crawl space of his Surrey house and was sentenced to nine months in jail on June 4, 2010, but was released on parole after serving six.
The Crown also applied to have Nguyen's house forfeited to the government, under provisions of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
Surrey watching challenge of anti-grow-op program in Mission
By Kevin Diakiw - Surrey North Delta LeaderSurrey is watching closely as the District of Mission faces a class action lawsuit against the city for its grow-op fighting program.
The Electrical Fire Safety Initiative (EFSI) was started in Surrey about five years ago and has been initiated in other municipalities including Mission, where it's called the Public Safety Inspection Team (PSIT).
Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis is the architect of the program and said he's intrigued to see what happens when a group in Mission asks council to dismantle the program today (Monday).
"I'll be watching it with great interest," Garis said Friday.
B.C. homeowners fuming over marijuana growing operation search law
METRO VANCOUVER — A controversial B.C. law that allows municipalities to inspect homes using large amounts of electricity has helped make neighbourhoods safer and thwarted marijuana-growing operations, says a criminology professor whose research triggered the law.
But his comments are unlikely to move outraged citizens in one community, 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.
B.C. politician moves to scrap controversial grow-op bylaw
VANCOUVER — A controversial bylaw that gives authorities in Mission, B.C., the power to fine homeowners for the cost of searching their properties for marijuana grow ops — even if police find nothing — is under attack on two fronts.
A Mission municipal councillor is seeking to rescind the bylaw, and 74 residents have reportedly joined to file a class-action lawsuit against the district.
As the Vancouver Province reported recently, a number of Mission residents have complained that their homes were searched for pot grow ops and they were slapped with fees and repair orders costing upward of $10,000 — all on questionable evidence.
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