Pubdate: Wed, 19 Aug 2015
Source: Langley Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Langley Times
Contact:  http://www.langleytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1230
Webpage: http://www.langleytimes.com/opinion/322190461.html

NOT A GREENHOUSE

Imagine if the house next door to you was growing mushrooms or
potatoes or some other kind of agricultural crop in the basement.

Imagine that there were times when you could smell the odor of
fertilizer wafting over the fence.

If you lived in a residential neighbourhood, you might be unhappy
about that. You might complain that a house should not be used as a
commercial greenhouse.

And if you were told the person has a legal right to do what they were
doing, you might get upset, just as some people in a Langley
neighbourhood became indignant when they found out a house on their
street is running a legal grow-op, and that very little can be done
about it.

Because the grower has a federal licence from Health Canada, the best
they can hope for is to get better filtering of the fumes and a safety
inspection to make sure the wiring doesn't pose a hazard.

A number of online comments posted since The Times wrote about the
Walnut Grove situation have suggested the neighbours have no right to
complain because medicinal marijuana is legal and the grower has a
licence.

Respectfully, they are missing the point.

This isn't a question of pro-pot or anti-pot, it's about the federal
government permitting the growing of a particular plant in residential
areas without giving a lot of thought to the potential
consequences.

It wouldn't matter if the crop in question was kale, green beans or
corn, the problem is cultivation is being carried out in locations
that are not appropriate.

According to one estimate, when the federal government first started
licensing legal medicinal marijuana growing, it issued about 300
licences across the entire country.

Now, a few years down the road, there are more than 600 licensed grow
operations in Langley Township alone, or roughly one for every 60
houses, townhouses and apartment buildings in the municipality.

Many have hundreds of plants.

Their locations tend to be a secret until there is a fire or a
grow-rip by criminals.

Under new federal rules that were supposed to take effect last year,
their number was to shrink to a handful of large-scale bulk growing
operations that would be banned from residential neighbourhoods.

Municipalities across the country prepared for the switch by ordering
bans on small grow-ops in residential areas.

But all of that is on hold, because the small legal growers objected
to being rendered collectively illegal, and managed to get a temporary
court injunction.

Leaving people like the Walnut Grove residents, who think houses ought
be used for housing, in limbo.
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MAP posted-by: Matt