Maple Ridge News, March 14, 2014

Page 1

Along the Fraser Saving salmon before it’s too late. p6

Calls to review B.C. Civil Forfeiture laws. p3

THE NEWS

Community Historical society to restore plaques. p11

www.mapleridgenews.com Friday, March 14, 2014 · Serving Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows · est. 1978 · 604-467-1122 · Delivery: 604-466-6397

Pitt Meadows moves to ban medical growops Lower Mainland cities wary of property tax pitfall by M on i sh a M ar ti n s reporter

Pitt pride Pitt Meadows Marauder fans cheer for their team during a game against the Vancouver College Fighting Irish at the 69th annual B.C. Boys High School Basketball Championships on Wednesday at the Langley Events Centre.

Pitt Meadows is set to ban medical marijuana operations in all zones of the city. On the recommendation of staff, council voted Tuesday to prohibit commercial medical marijuana facilities in industrial and agricultural areas, joining Abbotsford, White Rock and Langley, which have already moved to stop the enterprises from setting up. Pitt Meadows banned medical growops from residential areas in 2010. At a committee meeting, acting chief administrative officer Kim Grout said Pitt Meadows initially supported a plan to restrict the operations to industrial areas, but decided not too after a recent advisory from the B.C. Assessment Authority.

See story, p39 Colleen Flanagan/ THE NEWS

See Grows, p13

Volunteers count Metro homeless Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows saw lone increase in 2011 by M onisha M ar t ins staff reporter

Colleen Flanagan/THE NEWS

Volunteer Bee Schroeder fills out a questionnaire for the 2014 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count in downtown Maple Ridge on Wednesday.

Thirty volunteers fanned out across Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows Wednesday to conduct a 24-hour homeless count, performed in Metro Vancouver every three years.

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They scoured the bushes looking for camps, checked under highway overpasses and tallied a steady stream of men, women and young people who dropped by the Salvation Army’s Caring Place shelter. Volunteers also checked the library, bottle depots and the welfare office. The count is always an under estimate of the actual number of homeless, but provides valuable insight. “The count is important to us,” said Darrell Pilgrim, di-

Index Opinion Letters Driveway Homes Sports Scoreboard Classifieds

6 7 16 31 39 40 43

rector of the Caring Place, which was the base for volunteers. “We want to make sure we are using the resources the best we can. We also feel it’s important to make sure we are providing enough resources.” Preliminary results will be released in late April, with a final report out in July. Volunteers in 2011 counted 2,623 homeless in Metro – down slightly from 2008. But many more were found in shelters rather than on the

street. In 2011, Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows were the only municipalities in Metro Vancouver where the number of people without a roof over their heads increased. One hundred and two people were found homeless that March, up from 90 in 2008. Of the 102 – 40 were housed in emergency shelter facilities, while one person was listed as having no fixed address. See Homeless, p13

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