INSIDE: New ‘hot spots’ crime strategy paying off for local RCMP Pg. 3 F R I D A Y
March 11, 2011
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Bruins win streak now sits at six
N E W S , S P O R T S , W E A T H E R & E N T E R T A I N M E N T chilliwacktimes.com
Bad Kitty
Kirkness pulls plug on gravel expansion BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
Grow-op home has produced $3.6 million worth of pot
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he proponent of a controversial gravel mine expansion may have backed down, but his opponents want even more. Victor Froese, who lives near the site of the proposed loadout area on Vedder Mountain Road, led the charge against the Kirkness Pacific Holdings (KPH) application. The company announced this week it had withdrawn the application. “This is a very sensible decision considering the public concern about the project and the way it was presented,” Froese told the Times. “But we don’t think it is the end of it.” In a brief press release issued Tu e s d a y, K P H EB IRST announced the First reported on application was chilliwacktimes.com withdrawn “for reconsideration.” The application was to expand the company’s Parmenter Road mine site and build a conveyor belt system down the north face of Vedder Mountain to two properties on Vedder Mountain Road. These properties would have needed to be blasted out and made level, a process that critics argued would have created a gravel mine in and of itself. KPH has reconsidered mainly because of “the myriad of regulations from all levels of government and the cost to business of managing the process.” Despite stepping back from the proposal, KPH maintains the project would have reduced the company’s carbon footprint, reduced traffic on Columbia Valley See KIRKNESS, Page 7
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BY PAUL J. HENDERSON phenderson@chilliwacktimes.com
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Tyler Olsen/TIMES
Two units were damaged during an early-morning fire Wednesday at a McIntosh Drive apartment building.
Her heroes deserve cookies Brave Mounties risk lives to rescue tenants of burning apartment
BY TYLER OLSEN tolsen@chilliwacktimes.com
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he banging on her door early Wednesday morning alerted Glenda Gowler that this time, the fire alarm was for real. Gowler, a 67-year-old grandmother, had slept through fire alarms before during the 10 years she had lived on the third floor of McIntosh Manor. But the banging meant she was in trouble. Gowler had just come back from the hospital after hip surgery and was confined to a motorized scooter. And as she got out of bed and tried to prepare herself to somehow leave, she could see flames jumping up the side of her building. Around 4:30 a.m. fire had broken out on the bal-
cony of a second-floor unit in the 72-unit apartment building and was spreading to a balcony above. The flames had caused caused a propane canister to explode and shoot all the way across McIntosh Drive, and smoke was entering the building and the third-floor hallway to which Gowler had made her way. And through that smoke-filled hall came Gowler’s saviours in the form of two Chilliwack RCMP officers, Sgt. Glen Carrier and Const. Pierre Boivin. The two officers carried Gowler down two flights of stairs and to safety, all the while saying “it’s OK darling, it’s OK darling,” according to Gowler. All three, along with two other occupants of the building, were taken to hospital suffering from smoke inhalation. Three other Mounties were treated on scene for smoke inhalation. Gowler, the Mounties and the other hospitalized residents were released later that morning. But before she was even home, Gowler had See FIRE, Page 29
he City of Chilliwack wants the court to impose a precedent-setting $40,000 fine on a Promontory property owner who has twice had marijuana grow operations found in her home. Four charges, each carrying a maximum $10,000 fine, have been laid against Kitty Iok Kee Cheang, the owner of a home in the 46000block of Tournier Place. Cheang is charged with: constructing or installing an obstruction of an exit required under the Building Code; allowing a portion of the premise to be subject to the growth of mould or fungus arising from the cultivation of marijuana plants; allowing construction to be carried out without a valid building permit; and allowing construction which does not comply with the Building Code. “This is the biggest tool that we can use,” Mayor Sharon Gaetz told the Times, adding that the city estimates the value of the marijuana seized from the residence at $3.6 million. The Tournier Place home has sat empty since Oct. 29 when a city inspector posted a notice forbidding entry to the home. T h e f i r s t t i m e a g r ow - o p was found in the home was in See FINE, Page 7
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