‘It’s really changed our lives’: Langley couple says pot greenhouse stinking neighborhood

LANGLEY (NEWS 1130) – A massive pot greenhouse is emitting smells so powerful, a Langley couple says their grandchildren don’t want to come over to play outside.

“Normally they come here and they play outside cause that’s what you do at granny’s house,” May Leeper tells NEWS 1130. “But if they don’t want to come here, then we have to go there, yea, just very frustrating.”

May and her husband, Ron, have never had problems with the farms near their Aldergrove home in the over 40 years they’ve lived in the neighborhood but that changed when Canopy Growth opened its greenhouse down the street, on 0 Avenue near 264th Street.

Here’s a portion of my interview with Langley woman May Leeper as she describes the smell coming from Canopy Growth’s massive pot greenhouse just down the road: pic.twitter.com/pvl5uhJoeT

— Martin MacMahon (@martinmacmahon) May 14, 2019

“One word: skunk. If you’ve ever smelled skunk, you’ve smelled these plants from their harvesting,” says Ron.

The couple has to keep their windows closed at night because of a humming noise and say the company’s efforts to reduce the smell have been ineffective.

“The noise goes on every night. The odour is periodical and it depends on the wind and it depends on when they’re harvesting and also depends on how much they’re harvesting. For the last month or so, we’ve been getting quite a bit of odour,” says May.

“It smells like a heavy, skunky, pot odour that can just drift in without any warning. You could be just out in your garden or maybe sitting outside, having your coffee and all of a sudden you have to come inside because it’s just overwhelming. Often will create a headache for me and I know that it has triggered asthma attacks for our friends who have been here.”

The couple says they’re not the only one, pointing to more than two dozen other families who have raised concerns with the greenhouse and are now trying to get the federal government to step in.

They have the support of BC Liberal MLA’s Rich Coleman and Ian Paton, who have written to the federal government, asking them to enforce greenhouse odour laws or shut the facility down.

We have reached out to Canopy Growth for comment.