Pubdate: Tue, 22 Apr 2008
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2008 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Keith Fraser, The Province
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Marijuana - Canada)

UNOFFICIAL GROW-OP SEARCHES BEND THE LAW, SAYS LAWYER

'Ruse' To Gain Entry Violates Citizens' Rights, Judge Told

A law allowing homes that show unusually high power consumption to be 
inspected is a ruse for police to gain entry without a warrant to 
search for marijuana grow-ops, a B.C. Supreme Court judge was told yesterday.

And, since it allows a warrantless entry of homes by police, the law 
is a violation of a citizen's rights against unreasonable search and 
seizure, said Vancouver lawyer Joseph Arvay, who wants the law struck down.

Arvay represents a Surrey couple, Jason Arkinstall and Jennifer 
Green, whose power was shut off after they refused to allow police on 
their premises during a warrantless electrical safety inspection.

Arvay said amendments to the provincial Safety Standards Act that 
allow the inspections are simply designed to allow police to crack 
down on grow-ops.

He said a report by Fraser Valley criminology professor Darryl Plecas 
on the dangers of fires in grow-ops is exaggerated, biased and 
therefore useless.

The report, used by the government to support legislation that allows 
the inspections of homes showing high power consumption -- a possible 
grow-op indicator -- found that a home with a grow-op is 24 times 
more likely to have a fire.

But Arvay told Justice Bill Smart that an analysis of the report 
reveals no such danger.

"The report is so biased, so incomplete, so much designed to support 
this initiative, that it isn't worth any consideration," Arvay said.

He said the report failed to take into account the large number of 
unknown grow-ops and those using illegal power bypasses.

Last May, a team consisting of Surrey safety inspectors, B.C. Hydro 
personnel, firefighters and police demanded entry to the 
6,000-square-foot Surrey home of Arkinstall and Green.

The couple agreed to allow everyone in except the police, who did not 
have a warrant. The City of Surrey then cut off their power for five 
days, forcing them and their young child to abandon the home, even 
though city inspectors found no grow-op in the home.

The couple are suing the City of Surrey for damages.

Arvay attacked the city for a policy that he said is "inflexibly, 
rigidly applied . . . it doesn't matter whether it's a home of glass 
walls and windows and a little old lady with cats in it."

Under the Surrey program, a pilot project for other B.C. communities, 
1,000 homes were targeted for safety checks over two years from a 
list of 6,000 homes that had high power consumption. (Outside court, 
Arvay said only one of those homes was found to have had a grow-op.)

Officials argue that, because of a 48-hour, advance-notice 
requirement for a warrant, grow-op equipment is often gone by the 
time inspectors show up. Earlier this month, Surrey officials claimed 
that the program had cut the number of grow-ops to 100 from 1,000.

Arkinstall has links to the Hells Angels motorcycle club and pleaded 
guilty to trafficking cocaine after he was arrested in 2005 during a 
crackdown on the Vancouver chapter of the club. He was sentenced to 
18 months in jail.

But Arvay said outside court that his client's unsavoury background 
was "irrelevant."

The hearing continues today with arguments from the B.C. Civil 
Liberties Association, B.C. Hydro and the B.C. government. Surrey 
city lawyers are to begin submissions tomorrow.
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