Supreme Court allows police to enlist electricity firm in grow-op case

In a 7-2 decision the Supreme Court of Canada overturned a previous Alberta court ruling this morning, deciding that the Calgary police did not over step their boundaries when they asked a local electricity to spy on one of its customers to try and determine if he was growing cannabis. The Alberta appeals court had ruled, "(that police) breached the constitutional guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure."

In 2004 while in the neighbourhood investigating another matter, police noticed condensation on the windows of Daniel Gomboc's house and noted moisture pouring from some vents. They also, "detected the smell of a marijuana grow operation."

The police then asked (likely told) the man's local electric company, Enmax, to install a DRA (digital recording ammeter) to determine the man's power consumption over a period of five days. This information was enough to obtain a search warrant.

At Gomboc's house police seized 165 kilograms of bulk cannabis and another 206 grams of processed, pre-bagged cannabis. Gomboc was convicted of growing and trafficking.

Last December the court ruled that, "there's no right to privacy of your curbside garbage," but in 2009 an Alberta appeal court ruled that the electric company should not have, "co-opted" by police to conduct "a form of surreptitious electric surveillance" of an individual.

The appeal court also concluded that tapping electrical meters is "more intrusive and more revealing" than using infra-red aerial surveillance because meters can zero in on hour-by-hour use. Marijuana is typically grown indoors using light cycles of 12-18 hours, the court said.

http://www.canada.com/news/national...electricity+firm+grow+case/3877592/story.html

 

generators, solar, wind power.....off the grid:
do your homework> how much energy should the house use?... remove all electrical appliances only use what you need. do laundry else where, mount Air conditioner units but do not use them, reduce all indoor lighting to Clf low voltage, use gas when cooking...

 

The lady across the street married a man that makes ice for a living. He does this at home.

About 5 months after he moved in the police raided his house, apparently under the false belief it was a grow house.

They got their warrant based solely on the fact that the electric use had risen sharply and suddenly and stayed that way.

 

thats a damn shame!

 

playing :devil:advocate .. lets consider that the residence is not up to code for such power consumptions, this puts innocent people at risk when electrical fires can take place...

 

Place a 4000watt load on a 100Amp service meter see what happens..
4000Watts =33.333amps. add toaster, lamps, microvave over, frigidaire, dryer, televisions..

even with a 200amp service the heavy load is going to be to much.. Its just begging for trouble. Now if you installed a commercial lighting set up for something other than growing, then grew...

the ideal thing to do would be to live normally and waste energy with air conditioners, electric heaters in the winter, multi televisions sets, lamps, cooking appliances.. then have them do an electrical audit of your house.. The inspector will discover your a wasteful idiot and leave it at that.. As long as you pay your bill around here they dont care.... But once again Ill emphasis overloading a circuit to grow marijuana is dangerous.

 

It was the growers own stupidity and sloppiness that got him caught.

 

I fully undertand where your coming from but it seems like a visit from a fire marshall and building inspector would have been a more apropiate response then a dozen deputies at 5 in the morning.

 

true that..

Da Vinci's Inquest had an episode dealing with both..