ST..JOHNS (CBC) - A drug dealer has been sent to prison for running a marijuana grow-op that blew up an apartment outside St. John's last year.

Charles Collins, 47, was arrested more than two months after a clandestine dope lab exploded in a basement apartment in the Topsail area of Conception Bay South in May 2007.

Provincial court Judge Robert Hyslop on Monday sentenced Collins to six years and four months in prison for convictions of unlawfully producing marijuana and possession for the purpose of trafficking.

The daytime explosion happened while members of the family living upstairs - including a three-month-old baby girl - were at home, and neighbourhood children were playing outside.

No one was injured, but the explosion happened with so much force that the outside door was blown from the structure.

Hyslop chided Collins, who had pleaded guilty to the charges, for a "callous" disregard for the safety of others.

Collins was arrested last September when police were tipped off that he was staying at a hotel in Mount Pearl.

Court was also told that Collins had previously been convicted in a Quebec court of criminal negligence causing death after a four-year-old boy was killed by fumes from the chemicals Collins was using to grow marijuana.

The Royal Newfoundland Constabulary said the apartment was well equipped as a clandestine drug lab. Police seized marijuana plans, timers, lights and kerosene.

With the eight months Collins has served in pre-sentencing custody taken into account, Collins now faces a prison term no longer than five years.

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