New Bylaw Would Compel Landlords To Check Their Properties For Drug Production

[Marianne]

Landlords might be the new front-line soldiers against pot growers under a proposed bylaw.

Four yearly inspections by a landlord should be enough to disrupt the careers of would-be marijuana growers in Langley.

That's what Township councillors are hoping, after they sent a new anti-pot bylaw to public hearing.

The bylaw will require landlords to inspect properties at least once every three months to check for methamphetamine labs and grow operations.

Because it takes about four months to grow a crop of marijuana from seedling to harvest, the inspections should catch growers in the act, or drive them away. If a landlord does the regular inspections and discovers a growing operation, he or she is off the hook for any police costs.

The bylaw also requires property owners to tell any potential future buyers that the property once held a growing operation or drug lab.

Councillor Steve Ferguson called it a "the good, the bad and the ugly" bylaw. It should separate good landlords -- those who already check their properties -- from the bad absentee landlords who allow the drug production to go on, he said.

Newskhawk: Happykid - 420 Magazine
Author: Matthew Claxton
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: sunletters@png.canwest.com
Website: canada.com

[XLE420]

What happen to privacy? So now, instead of your landlord being the guy that wants the money, he is also going to be police, that search, without a search warrent.

[GreenState]

i want my security deposit here are the keys ill be out in 48hrs... and yea i grew pot but my rent was payed every month. shit my landlord was over stuffing some stuff in the shed on the property and i had some lamps and pvc pipes and some gallon buckets and soil in the shed and it always smells like dank, but hes a cool landlord and rents me the house cheap and doesnt really come unless i call with a issue.