BANGOR – Plans for a methadone clinic in the city took a significant step forward Friday as members of two subcommittees studying the issue came to tentative compromises on when and where such a facility could open.

The deal, which still must be approved by the full Special Committee on Opiate Addiction on Tuesday, would allow – with conditions – Acadia Hospital to open the clinic, which would use methadone to treat those addicted to heroin or other opiates including prescription painkillers.

“It’s looking like there’s going to be treatment here,” City Councilor Nichi Farnham, the committee’s co-chairwoman, said Friday. “It’s just how, when and where.”

The compromise marks the latest chapter in the clinic debate, which is now coming to a head with the opiate committee set to issue a set of recommendations to the Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services next week.

In response to concerns about the clinic’s proposed location on remote Indiana Avenue, Acadia officials offered Friday to begin the treatment at a different site, with the hospital’s main campus on Stillwater Avenue a possibility.

Hospital officials, however, made it clear that the Acadia Recovery Community remained their top choice for the clinic, which must still be licensed by state and federal officials.

The city, in turn, did not insist upon a proposed one- or two-year delay, but instead tied the clinic’s opening to the completion of several goals, including the establishment of a community advisory group that would help shape and evaluate the program’s operation.

The hospital must also establish a plan to cooperate with police, finalize the clinic’s location and help establish a group to develop education curriculum about heroin and opiate addiction.

Lynn Madden, Acadia’s vice president of administrative service, said the requirements, many of which are mandated by state licensing agencies, could be accomplished within four to six months.

Madden said Friday that she was satisfied with the terms of the tentative compromise, the final language of which has yet to be included in the committee’s report.

“I’m very pleased the city has recognized the need for this treatment,” Madden said after Friday’s subcommittee meetings. “We want and need to begin offering this as a treatment option, and this isn’t a bad compromise.”

State substance abuse officials, citing the region’s rising opiate addiction problem, were cautiously optimistic upon hearing of the compromise Friday afternoon.

“There are sick people in your community, and they have not access to the full range of services and there have been deaths in the community because of that,” said Kimberly Johnson, director of the state Office of Substance Abuse. “I am glad the committee seems to have come to some agreement that could allow the program sooner than later.”

The state’s top federal prosecutor, local law enforcement and community groups have called for a two-year moratorium on the clinic, which opponents contend will cause an influx of hard-core drug addicts and a rise in drug-related crime.

Charles Murray, a member of a local group calling itself Citizens Against Heroin, argued that the clinic should not open until additional drug enforcement agents – also recommended by the committee – are in place and at work.

“We’re pushing this thing when it’s not ready to go,” Murray said of the clinic, during the meeting. “I think the citizens don’t want this to take place until the police are in place and education is in place.

“If we get our streets inundated with addicts, how is that going to help the city?” he asked.

With emotions in the community high and the formation of the opiate addiction committee, the Maine Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services had agreed to delay the licensing of the Bangor clinic until January 2001.

Acadia applied in February to operate the clinic out of the former Hope House, which currently houses the hospital’s drug and alcohol treatment center.

Based on the agreement reached Friday, Acadia would move its outpatient counseling services out of the Acadia Recovery Community to the methadone clinic’s new site, Madden said.

Hospital officials are considering several alternative locations, including the possibility of leasing existing office space somewhere in the city, she said.

The city is likely to continue to press for a medical setting, such as Acadia’s main campus or the Eastern Maine Healthcare Mall on Union Street.

Opiate committee members say the new location would allow a community advisory group to gather and evaluate data, and help determine if the clinic would be appropriate for the ARC facility.

Tuesday’s meeting of the Special Committee on Opiate Addiction will begin at 5 p.m. in the City Council chambers at City Hall.