Fire chief has other tactics up his sleeve
No matter what the outcome of a recent challenge to a B.C. law that allows police and safety inspectors to enter homes they suspect of containing marijuana grow-ops,
Surrey Fire Chief Len Garis won’t be giving up.
After all, the Electrical Fire Safety Initiative, which has now shut down thousands of grow-ops in Surrey and other Fraser Valley municipalities since 2005, was the brainchild of Garis and University of the Fraser Valley criminologist Darryl Plecas. Under the program, a city has the legal authority to conduct safety inspections of homes that are using abnormally high amounts of electricity, based on information provided by B.C. Hydro.
It’s founded on the premise that homes containing illegal grow-ops use an abnormally high amount of electricity and that their wiring modifications often pose significantly increased fire risks - not only to the house in question, but to the entire neighbourhood.
