A 35-year-old man has been handed a 12-month conditional sentence to be served at home after pleading guilty to running a marijuana grow-op in North Vancouver's Delbrook neighbourhood.
Matthew William Burgess was sentenced in North Vancouver provincial court Friday after pleading guilty to production of marijuana.
Burgess was renting a home at 211 Balmoral Rd. when police came calling with a search warrant Feb. 16 of this year and discovered 182 plants in a basement grow room. They also seized about 130 grams of dried marijuana from the home.
Investigators were first alerted to the grow-op by an anonymous CrimeStoppers tipster who said the house smelled like pot, there seemed to be many bright lights inside the home and condensation on the windows.
In February, a Hydro service check confirmed the presence of an electrical bypass. That test found that while only 1,686 watts of power was measured on the Hydro meter, actual electrical consumption in the house was 10 times that amount.
An original charge of theft of electricity was dropped after Burgess pleaded guilty to drug production. Burgess also paid back BC Hydro for the diverted electricity.
