New Bylaw To Be Considered to Battle Grow Ops

Monday, June 21, 2010 03:57 AM

Prince George, B.C. - The City of Prince George is going to take a very close look at a new bylaw that would help it combat crack houses and grow ops.

Under the bylaw, the fees and costs would be invoiced to the occupier of the property and/or the property owner. Ultimately, the property owner will be responsible for the fees/costs as any unpaid invoices would be added to the property taxes as a debt at the end of

the year.

Under the current system, a team, usually made up of bylaw enforcement, building inspector, fire inspector and an electrical inspector, check out buildings after the RCMP have conducted their search warrants on suspected grow ops or drug labs.

The bylaw Council will be asked to examine this evening, is aimed at enhancing the City's ability to respond to grow ops and drug labs beyond the current inspection system by provinding a way for the City to recoup the costs associated with inspecting the properties and resolving issues with the properties. The bylaw will also clear the way for City staff to obtain reports from B.C. Hydro about excessive electricity use.

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Posted on Monday, June 21, 2010 03:57 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: Pojeb_sa on June 21 2010 8:12 AM

If I were an out of town landlord, I would take a good hard look at liquidating and getting the heck out of Prince George if I were going to be on the hook for what my tenants did.

I most certainly wouldn't allow low incoming renters.

Posted by: chrislivingdowntown on June 21 2010 8:15 AM

Pojeb_sa low income renters for the most part can't afford all the stuff that goes with starting a grow op so I have no idea what you are talking about bigot.

Posted by: gitterdun on June 21 2010 9:13 AM

How does a city bylaw give the city the right to access private records at BC Hydro?

Why would they even need that.......its the cop's job to find grow ops. THat's all we need is some city employee playing cop.

Posted by: chickenbus on June 21 2010 9:20 AM

One problem I see is that landlords have tight laws that prohibit them from evicting tenants or even checking on what their tenants are doing in the rental unit. How the heck can they become responsible for something they have no control over? If I was a tenant, I would sell all rental property thus creating a rental shortage in town.

Posted by: Retired on June 21 2010 10:14 AM

They cant enforce the bylaws that we now have how would they be able to enforce another bylaw?
Cheers

Posted by: verballabel on June 21 2010 10:44 AM

It is the low income tenants that can easily get into growing, they will be subsidized by the higher ups in the drug trade and receive a small percentage for growing it... I'm sure Pojeb_sa is not a bigot.

Posted by: r_u_serious on June 21 2010 2:59 PM

why is it the landlords are always responsible. Tenants have no responsibilities for any of there actions. Landlords have no rights. Tenants destroy our house bail on rent and we are left with the mess to clean up. Now the city is adding more possible expenses to the landlords. chicken bus is right its hard to get into the house to see whats going on. So how are we suppose to monitor it. charge the criminals not the landlords who are trying to help society with rental units for people to live in. Im probably one of the few landlords that has actually dropped the rent over the years to help people due to the economy . But if my expenses keep going up like this i will be raising the rent and so will many more people. People blame the landlords for high rent prices. well let me say we arent here to subsidize peoples living, so if government keeps jacking up our costs ,we have no choice but to jack up the rent.

Just my opinion.

Posted by: Andyfreeze on June 21 2010 3:11 PM

Big can of worms!

Posted by: Anastasia on June 21 2010 4:32 PM

I am a renter and when my landlord wants to look at my place he just gives me notice of 48hrs.

I had tried in the past to attend Landlord Tenant Act meetings but once they found out I was a renter I wasn't allowed to stay, I have been saying for years that there should be a Renters Blacklist. Landlords register and are given an access code to the site(blacklist), so when a Landlord has a bad tenant that they have evicted or the tenant did a midnight move and they lost money they can go to the website and put in the renters name so then when a Landlord is getting ready to rent they can consult the list to see if a bad renter is on it.

AS a Renter I think it would be a good system and it would be a way to keep rent at a reasonable price, and give landlords some assurance that they are renting to good people.

Posted by: Denaljo on June 21 2010 5:40 PM

Grow ops are not the problem.
Keeping pot illegal is the problem. Gangs want it illegal so they can make big money to get into other ventures. Politicians want to rant and rave about it to make it seem like they are doing something useful.Lawyers want it illegal so they can make easy money fueling the 'legal' system.
The 'war on drugs' was lost a long time ago but we will keep on going down the same path as it is good for business.
Just Big Brothers opinion -thx.

Posted by: supertech on June 21 2010 8:17 PM

Anastasia--your idea is very flawed because landlords could put any name they choose on there. "Slumlords", and there are many here, would do that to every tenant they had whether good or bad.

Posted by: Anastasia on June 22 2010 7:49 AM

Supertech - that was just the rough idea that I put there, didn't have time to spell it all out.

there would be a "board" that the Landlords would have to submit their "claims" to, and once the "board" had reviewed it and done whatever background work required to either prove the "renter" belonged on the list or not.

Posted by: r_u_serious on June 22 2010 9:54 AM

anastasia- your idea is really good. There is a system like this in place in the uk and it works amazingly well, from what i have heard from fellow landlords from the uk.