SCAN is a Nova Scotia law called the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act.

SCAN deals with illegal activities that adversely affect a neighbourhood that:

• may be a health, safety or security concern, or
• interfere with the peaceful enjoyment of property.

For example, SCAN covers specific activities like:

• illegal sale of alcohol or drugs
• illegal gambling, or
• prostitution.

SCAN allows anyone to complain anonymously to Nova Scotia’s Public Safety Investigation Unit if they are concerned that these activities may happen regularly in their community.

Anyone can make a complaint if they believe activities like the illegal sale of alcohol, possession of drugs, or illegal gambling are regularly happening in their community. Complaints are confidential.

Once you make a complaint, you are referred to as the complainant. Your identity cannot be revealed unless you agree in writing. Contact Nova Scotia’s Public Safety Investigation Unit at 1-877-357-2337 to make a complaint. You'll find more information online at www.gov.ns.ca/just/Public_Safety/safer_communities.asp

Call the Public Safety Investigation Unit at 1-877-357-2337 to make a complaint.

After a complaint is made, the Director of Public Safety or public safety investigators may:

• Try to solve the problem informally
• Ask for more information
• Question neighbourhood residents
• Investigate the complaint, including conducting surveillance of the property
• Send warning letters to the property owner or occupants
• Apply to court for a community safety order
• Take other steps the Director considers appropriate.

The Director may decide not to act on a complaint or to stop action on a complaint. If so, they must tell the complainant about this decision in writing.

The Director does not have to give reasons for a decision.

A Community Safety Order is a court order that requires people to stop doing specific illegal things on a property and may also order people to leave a property.

A Community Safety Order:

• gives the property's address
• describes specific activities that are the reason for the order
• requires people not to do or allow any of the activities at the property
• requires certain people named in the order to do what is reasonable to stop the activities from continuing or happening again and
• gives the date the order ends.

Depending on the situation, a community safety order might also:

• Order people to leave the property
• Stop people from going back to the property
• End a lease or tenancy agreement
• Order that the property be closed for up to 90 days, and
• Give the owner possession of the property.

The court might order a Community Safety Order if:

• activities are happening that show the property is being used for a “specified use,” and
• the activities negatively affect the community or neighbourhood.

“Specified use” includes: the illegal sale of liquor, prostitution, illegal gambling, illegal possession, use, sale, transfer or exchange of drugs. The activities must be happening regularly.

If you have been served with a Community Safety Order and disagree, you should get legal advice immediately. You may be able to get legal advice from Dalhousie Legal Aid or Nova Scotia Legal Aid. If you do not qualify for Legal Aid, you may contact a lawyer in private practice.

You may apply to the Court (Supreme Court of Nova Scotia) to ask a judge to change the Community Safety Order if you live in the property but are not the owner (for example - you are a tenant), and the order:

• says you and anyone living with you must leave (vacate) the property and can't go back
• ends your lease or tenancy agreement, or
• says that the property must be closed.

 If you are unsure whether the order does any of these things, call the Public Safety Section, Policing & Victim Services Division, Nova Scotia Department of Justice, at (902) 424-2504.

You must apply to court within 14 days of the date you were served with the order.

A property owner or anyone who lives at the property, including a tenant, may apply to the Court to change part of an order that says the property must be closed. You must apply to the court before the date given to close the property.

Applying to the Court does not stay the Community Safety Order. This means that even if you apply to the Court to get the order changed, you still have to follow the order until the Court says differently.

If you are a tenant, the Court might change the community safety order by, for example:

• giving you and anyone living with you more time to leave the property
• allowing you to move back in if you have already moved out or
• putting your lease or tenancy agreement back in place.

You should get legal advice immediately if you want to appeal a decision under SCAN. If you want to appeal, you must apply to the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal within 14 days of the order you are appealing from. An appeal can only deal with questions of law, which are legal issues the judge made a decision about, not decisions on the facts. You must first get the court’s leave (permission) to appeal.

Yes.

The penalty is different depending on your offence.  See the list below for offences under SCAN and the possible penalties:

• If you are found guilty of removing or defacing an order notice posted on a building under SCAN, you may have to pay a fine of up to $2,500.00 and be sent to jail for up to 3 months or both.
• If you are found guilty of entering a property that is closed under a Community Safety Order, you may be fined up to $5,000.00 and sent to jail for up to 6 months or both.
• If you are found guilty of not following a Community Safety Order, you may have to pay a fine of up to $500 each day you do not follow the order.

If there is any conflict between the Residential Tenancies Act and the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act, the Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act takes priority.

• Safer Communities and Neighbourhoods Act and regulations
• Contact Nova Scotia’s Public Safety Investigation Unit at 1-877-357-2337 to file a complaint. You'll find more information online at: http://www.gov.ns.ca/just/Public_Safety/safer_communities.asp
•  LISNS Legal Information Line 1 800 665-9779 or 455-3135

For legal advice:

• Nova Scotia Legal Aid nslegalaid.ca, or listed under Legal Aid in the government blue pages of the telephone book
• Dalhousie Legal Aid Service (902) 423-8105
• A lawyer in private practice (a lawyer you would pay)