B.C. judge tosses search warrant for suspected marijuana grow operation
CAMPBELL RIVER, Canada — A Vancouver Island judge has tossed out a search warrant for a suspected marijuana grow operation, deriding the police information used to obtain the warrant as “thin gruel.”
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Douglas Thompson says in a decision released Friday that the right to be protected from unreasonable search was denied for Mario Kurtakis of Tahsis, B.C., when police scoured his property for evidence of marijuana production and trafficking.
A warrant was issued after Mounties reported smelling marijuana in the man’s truck, seeing a brick of peat moss in the vehicle, hearing what sounded like an industrial fan inside the home, and receiving reports from a source that marijuana was often smelled emanating from the property.
A trial was held last month into whether that evidence amounted to reasonable grounds for searching the home, and Thompson says it did not.