B.C. urged to adopt Surrey's successful anti-pot ways

More than 1,100 grow-ops shut down since 2005 by fire department checking on safety of wiring.   

Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts wants to take the city's grow-op-busting program provincewide -- and support for the move is growing. 

The city's Electrical Fire Inspection Safety Program has shut down more than 1,100 grow-ops since it started back in 2005.

It has also reduced electrical fires from about 16 to four a year.

The program works by doing electrical inspections on homes that are suspected of being grow-ops, notorious for having dangerous electrical wiring. Tainted homes are disconnected and made safe.

"Our goal is to have this implemented throughout the province," Watts told The Province yesterday. "We don't want to move the problem from Surrey to somewhere else."

In recent years, the program has expanded to include Langley, Richmond, Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Pitt Meadows, Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Mission.

Surrey's EFSI team currently handles 10 or 15 files every week, generated from B.C. Hydro consumption data or Crime Stopper tips.

At last year's Union of B.C. Municipalities Convention, Watts handed out a guidebook on the program to civic delegates.

Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis figures the grow-ops have left Surrey and moved elsewhere.

Some have literally gone underground, he said, growing weed in buried shipping containers that use generators to power them. Other growers have moved to more remote locations.

Between 2005 and 2009, the Surrey Fire Department has made safe 1,144 locations and reduced electrical safety violations by 55 per cent.

An audit two years ago found an 81-per-cent drop in grow-op complaints to the RCMP.

And the occurrence of children in grow-op homes has gone from 234 kids between 2005 and 2008, to none last year.

Garis has heard reports that the number of grow-ops is growing in areas like the Okanagan, the Cariboo and the Kootenays. So far, municipalities there are not participating in the program, and he's not sure why.

University of the Fraser Valley criminologist Darryl Plecas said Surrey's program should cover B.C. to stop grow-ops from shifting elsewhere. He said the program should be legislated B.C.-wide by the provincial government.

"It really needs to be a provincewide initiative. Criminals consistently change their M.O."

jbermingham@theprovince.com
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