Romaniuk's
Search Warrants Considered

Common Areas

• An applicant may walk upon the grounds of:
  
  
  1. an apartment building (the landlord's right to privacy was breached)
     [Laurin, R.R.; OCA];
  2. a commercial building (here a warehouse, where there may have been a civil trespass upon the landlord)
     [Arason, A.H.; {paras 87-89}; BCCA].
     
     
  and use those observations in an ITO
  However, they may not do so to peer into windows
  [Laurin, R.R.; OCA].
• An applicant may use the evidence obtained by
  
  
  1. standing in the hallway of an apartment building
     [Laurin, R.R.; OCA, Motevaselan, A.S.; {para 20}; BCPC and Vu, D.A.; {para 36}; BCCA, app dism'd; SCC];
  2. standing an apartment building's public entrance way
     [Joyal, E.; QCA].
     However: even if police have been asked to investigate by the building's caretaker, they cannot conduct warrantless searches if no exigent circumstances exist
     [Gobert, C.J.; {para 21}; SKPC and Hale-Matthews, J.; {para 29}; ABPC].
     Review exigent circumstances; or
  3. in the secure common areas of a condominium complex (there is a reduced expectation of privacy)
     [Nguyen, Thao Van; {para 167}; ABQB; aff'd; ABCA].
  4. Further, there is no expectation of privacy in areas where the public can roam freely - notwithstanding that the applicants had to buzz to get into the building
     [Beune, H.M.; {para 47}; BCPC, Brar, G.; {para 44}; MQB and Simpson, C.; 2005 CarswellOnt 8182; OSCJ].
     
     
  in ITOs.
• Applicants can use observations made from the roofs of:
  
  
  1. warehouses
     [Arason, R.H.; {para 87}; BCCA,
  2. strata complexes (here with consent)
     [DiPalma, M.; {paras 21-25}; BCCA]; and
  3. standing on a neighbour’s roof to lean over the property line to sniff a roof vent. Here the officer took pains to avoid touching anything on the suspect's property
     [Tran, Tom Tuong; {para 18}; BCSC].
     
     
  in ITOs.
• Garages:
  
  
  1. there is no privacy right in condominium garages that are shared by all owners or tenants
     [Drakes, A.A.; OSCJ, aff'd; OCA {paras 17 and 18} app dism'd; SCC];
  2. there is a reduced expectation of privacy in common area parking garages too
     [Chen, E.H.; OCJ and Chomik, S.L.; ABPC];
  3. The respondent refused an order to stop and drove his car into his apartment building's garage. "The respondent could not thwart their demand that he stop by escaping to the sanctuary of his garage. The parking garage was an element of the respondent’s dwelling but, as the trial judge found, one does not have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in such a parking garage as one has in one’s dwelling {para 29}
     [Clarke, P.; OCA]."
  
  
• Boiler rooms are public places
  [Rawlake, G.P.; {para 23}; SKQB].
• Review the No Trespassing Rule and Common Law Licence to Enter pages too.

End of
Common Areas Section

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