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MERRITT HERALD FREE
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2013 • MERRITT NEWSPAPERS
Drugs seized from Blair St. house, two locals arrested By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
BUCKIN’ BRONC Logan Hodson from Telkwa, B.C. hangs on during his 79-point ride aboard The Graduate in the bareback event on Saturday at the 55th Annual Nicola Valley Pro Rodeo. Ky Marshall won the event on the same horse with a score of 85 on Sunday. Good-sized crowds showed up both days for the exciting rodeo action that also featured the Langley Drill Riders precision riding team and rodeo clown Jayson Charters. For a complete list of the winning cowboys and cowgirls at this year’s Nicola Valley Pro Rodeo, turn to page 17 of today’s Herald. Ian Webster/Herald
Merritt RCMP seized drugs and drug paraphernalia last week from a group of alleged drug traffickers known to locals as the Surrey Boys. Officers executed a search warrant on the home in the 1800 block of Blair Street and seized seven rocks of crack cocaine totalling 1.3 grams, six 100-milligram capsules of morphine and 14.5 grams of marijuana, Const. Derrick Francis told the Herald. Other items taken included crack pipes with cocaine residue as well as packaging material. Two men from Merritt and a man from Kelowna were arrested and released on a promise to appear. They are scheduled to be in court on Dec. 10 in Merritt, Francis said, adding RCMP are recommending charges of possession for the purpose of trafficking. Francis said the federal Crown will review the information he sends them and will determine if charges will be
laid. “They’re not officially charged yet,” he said. “Our federal Crown will make that decision so it could go anywhere from federal Crown saying, ‘there’s no charge here’ to all of them going to trial and wherever that takes us.” Francis said this drug activity involves suppliers from the Lower Mainland feeding dealers in Merritt small amounts of drugs to sell. “Part of the problem that we run into here is that we have people from the Lower Mainland almost exclusively bringing the drugs up and what they’re doing is drip-feeding our locals. They don’t trust them with a lot of product because the people tend to be users as well [as dealers].” Francis said the Surrey Boys is a group the Merritt RCMP has been investigating since he started at the detachment. This group of people is not classified as an organized crime group under the Criminal Code, he said. Francis said it is a struggle to monitor these transient traf-
fickers because they move from house to house. “If we were investigating them in one spot, they just move to another spot, and what they’ve been doing recently is using the homes of some of our local drug addicts,” Francis said. These dealers will move in with an addict and sell drugs out of the addict’s home, taking advantage of the person’s addiction, Francis said. Francis said the search was prompted by calls from residents in the neighbourhood expressing concerns that drug activity was going on at the house. “As a result of that, we began an investigation that led me to believe that there was drug trafficking going on in the residence as well,” Francis said. One of the tell-tale signs for police is if there are many visitors to a residence that doesn’t have a registered business licence, which this house did not. Francis said police encourage the public to continue reporting any concerns of drug trafficking to them.
City plans talks with ministers at UBCM conference By Michael Potestio THE HERALD
reporter@merrittherald.com
A group from city hall will be in Vancouver later this month to ensure Merritt stays on the radar of the provincial government. The mayor, MLA Jackie Tegart and a group of councillors — including Mike Goetz, Dave Baker,
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Harry Kroeker and Kurt Christopherson — will be attending the annual Union of British Columbia Municipalities convention from Sept. 16 to 19. They will discuss local issues with provincial ministries at the convention. Merritt Mayor Susan Roline said she will also meet with the premier
to give her an update on what’s happening in Merritt, the city’s needs and to thank her for the province’s past support. Roline said most meetings will continue ongoing talks the city has been having with various ministries. “We’ve been going down there each year and talking to the different ministries that
have any connection to the things that we’re working on in Merritt,” Roline said, noting they will have almost all new ministers to talk with. The main goal of the meetings is to make inroads with the government and ensure the new ministers know Merritt and don’t lose sight of the city’s projects and initiatives,
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Roline said. “We haven’t asked for a financial request on anything right now, it’s all just ministry support,” Roline said. Roline said some of the needs the city wants to discuss includes bringing back government services that left town in the 2000s, which she said are still needed, given the
changes in Merritt’s population size and its demographics. Social services, mental health services and probation services are all needed again, Roline said. “Small portions of them have come back but we still need more,” Roline said, noting Merritt had poor socioeconomic rankings in
the latest B.C. statistics report. “The only way you can improve those is if you have the right support systems in place,” she said. Roline said Merritt used to have a probation office and a Ministry of Social Services office — now located in Kamloops.
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