The city of Port Coquitlam has denied a man's request to reverse a $6,500 fine he received for having 18 pot plants growing in his backyard garden.
Brian Kraynyk, a PoCo resident for 30 years, argued that the fine created a financial hardship and that he has since received a licence from the federal government to grow and possess medicinal marijuana.
The municipal rules are aimed at curbing large-scale, indoor grow operations that use chemicals and create electrical hazards, he told The Tri-City News, arguing he should not receive the same punishment for having plants in his garden.
"I had it mixed in with my tomatoes," he said. "This is all organic. I make all my own wine. I grow my own vegetables. I just thought I'd [grow marijuana] myself."
Kraynyk mixes marijuana into a tea that, along with other medication, helps him combat back pain with which he has struggled for decades.
He concedes that he was not legally allowed to grow pot when the city's Public Safety Inspection Team (PSIT), which is made up of bylaw officers and fire inspectors, came to his door on July 27, 2012. They ordered him to remove the plants and the tarp enclosure that housed them.
According to a staff report, a $2,000 re-inspection fee was waived because it consisted of "looking in the rear yard to confirm the plants and structure had been removed."
But city staff said council should not waive or reduce the $6,500 fine imposed on Kraynyk, a recommendation council voted to adopt.
A staff report notes the fee is the average cost of running the PSIT program and should not be based on the size or scale of the grow operations being inspected. It also stated that reversing the fine because a person had received a medicinal marijuana licence after the inspection took place would set a bad precedent.
Mayor Greg Moore concurred with the report, saying the city needs to recoup the money it spends to keep the team funded. "We try and find levies that help us with cost recovery for the city for illegal activities like this," he said. "We can also show cases where the fine was not enough."
But not all council members agreed with the report.
Darrell Penner was the only councillor to support waiving or reducing the fine, saying the bylaw was not designed to punish people like Kraynyk. He said the case is an exception to the rule because the man's pot garden operation was located outside and did not involve hazardous chemicals or faulty wiring.
"I have never voted to reduce these types of fees [waivers] before," he said. "This is what I would consider a bit of an anomaly."
In 2007, Port Coquitlam adopted a bylaw that created the Public Safety Inspection Team as a way of combating illegal grow operations in the municipality. Coquitlam has a similar program, which uses BC Hydro information to target homes with power consumption more than 93 kilowatt-hours per day.
Statistics show that since the teams were created, the number of incidents involving grow operations has declined across the Tri-Cities.
