Growing complaints about disorderly conduct outside a Clinton Hill methadone clinic have prompted two legislators, the clinic, and a state agency to create a neighborhood task force.
The Addiction Research and Treatment Corporation Clinic, on Fulton Street and Waverly Avenue, has been in the neighborhood since 1969. But thanks to a recent uptick in complaints about apparent drug dealers targeting clinic patrons, and an anecdotal (but not statistical) increase in petty crime, Councilwoman Letitia James (D–Fort Greene) and Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D–Fort Greene), met with state officials and the clinic itself to establish the task force.
“I will not allow my community to be held hostage to these individuals who don’t respect it,” said James.
Suzanne DeBrango, a boardmember of the Society for Clinton Hill and the secretary of her block association, walks her dogs every morning between 7 and 8 am, and said that at that hour, patients are already lining up for methadone. And where there are patients, she said, there are drug dealers.
“These drug dealers don’t even try to hide the fact that they’re selling drugs,” said DeBrango.
Police disagree that the drug-dealing situation is as bad as it may seem. “Sometimes people call in because they see three or four people hanging out and automatically assume they’re dealing drugs,” Deputy Inspector Philip Sferrazza of the 88th Precinct, said in November. “Sometimes they’re just hanging out.”
And Robert Sage, a spokesman for the agency that operates the clinic, said his patients are being scapegoated: “I’m not going to say there aren’t a small number of our patients involved in some of these issues, but we’re certainly not alone in this.”
The clinic has an eight-person security force stationed within the building charged with making sure patients don’t loiter. Then again, when members of the security force have approached alleged dealers, they’ve been threatened, Sage said.
For now, James has called for a cap on the number of patients.
