$5,200 fine for growing cucumber

Len Gratto, a 67-year-old man, has lived for 30 years with his wife in their house in Mission, British Columbia, Canada.  Recently, he was fined $5,200 by Mission city hall for growing cucumbers in his basement.

$5,200 cucumber

Apparently, for drug enforcement reasons, Mission City’s Grow-op bylaw programs allow municipal inspectors to enter homes with abnormally high hydro usage and look for evidence of illegal marijuana grow-ops for public safety reasons. Inspectors don’t have to find marijuana grow-ops, but if they find supposed residual evidence, such as high mould readings, they levy search fees and order repairs. If homeowners don’t comply, homes are tagged under the bylaw and effectively condemned as unsafe, and unsellable. Mission has collected $1.43 million in fines from Public Safety Inspection Team searches since 2008. From 2008 to 2010, there were 362 searches.

Len Gratto states that he has never grown marijuana and the ridiculous evidence against him are pictures of some “dirt” on the basement wall and a furnace pipe going up into the chimney, where it should be. He says he and many other Mission residents are being unfairly searched, embarrassed and fined and there is no way in hell he will pay $5,200  fine.

Instead, Len Gratto is planning to join an "imminent class action" law suit against the city, Mission, for hitting him with a 5,200 inspection fee. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is also expected to join the battle against Mission,

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