Bangor merchants eye petition to halt methadone clinic

loading...

BANGOR – A group of Maine Square Mall tenants opposing the location of a methadone clinic in their midst want to petition government officials and use political pressure to stop the clinic from opening in one of the strip mall’s empty storefronts.

During an informal gathering Friday morning, representatives from about half of the mall’s dozen or so businesses met at Quiznos Subs to discuss Colonial Management Group’s plan to open the clinic next door.

The city’s former mayor also said Friday that he thought the city bungled the matter by not informing the strip mall tenants about the new clinic in a more timely fashion.

City officials have known about the proposed clinic since late September. Tenants learned last week about the clinic.

“I saw no reason not to let people know,” Councilor Dan Tremble said. “Our allegiance is to the people of this city, not to an out-of-state company.”

Tremble said, however, that he didn’t plan on raising the issue of the city’s silence at an upcoming council meeting.

A proposed Nov. 22 meeting for tenants and Colonial is tentative. The Bangor City Council plans on meeting about the clinic on Nov. 29 at City Hall. No time has been set.

Douglas Grant, an employee of Strictly Formal, a formalwear rental company, said the campaign against the clinic likely would involve a petition, which, once signed, would be sent to city, state and federal officials.

“We’re making enough noise that the City Council has to deal with this,” Grant said.

Though Florida-based Colonial Management plans to open what would be Bangor’s second methadone clinic, the city’s role in the matter is limited.

The clinic would require state and federal licensing. The only city requirement is that the clinic must operate in the appropriate zoning designation, in this case general commercial, City Solicitor Norman Heitmann said last week.

He said this week that informing tenants was the landlord’s duty and that the city could not prevent Colonial’s clinic from opening because it is a permitted activity.

Despite that, Tremble said he had urged city officials to inform Maine Square Mall tenants in an Oct. 7 e-mail he sent to Heitmann, City Manager Edward Barrett and Police Chief Don Winslow.

That did not come to pass last month, said Tremble, who was council chairman until Monday when he was succeeded by Councilor Frank Farrington.

He said the group he e-mailed decided instead to leave notification up to the landlord and Colonial Management.

“People look to the city as a leader in this,” the councilor said. The manner in which the news broke made it look like the city had withheld information, he said. “It almost looked like we are in this with Colonial,” Tremble noted.

The former mayor said he knew there would be a strong reaction to the proposed clinic because of the reaction to the first clinic. “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that,” he said.

About six businesses were represented at the Friday meeting, which also was attended by Lt. Tim Reid of the Bangor Police Department. Reid warned that drug activity in the area would increase with the presence of the clinic at the mall, as shown by national data.

Joan Cirone, Quiznos co-owner, said the parents of some of her high school-aged workers have told her they wouldn’t allow their children to continue to work at the sub shop if a methadone clinic opens next door.

Though the meeting drew mostly businesspeople connected to the mall, the local media and the Police Department, there was one unexpected attendee.

Lynn Costigan, Colonial Management’s associate director for new development, said she attended Friday’s gathering at the request of the strip mall’s Massachusetts landlord.

“I didn’t know if I’d be welcome,” Costigan told the group.

Though Friday’s session was aimed at coming up with a strategy for keeping Costigan and her company out of the mall, the group of businesspeople allowed her to remain for part of their hour-long meeting.

Costigan fielded a number of complaints and questions about how Colonial planned to address parking and security in an already congested lot and why she wasn’t locating the clinic in a medical setting.

“It’s not that we don’t want you here – it’s the location,” Grant said.

“If our customers can’t come in, we’re out of a job,” he said, later adding, “If we had five acres of parking, there’d be no problem.”

If a second clinic must open here, tenants said, it should be located in a medical setting, such as the one that opened at Acadia Hospital in 2001.

“It really belongs in a hospital setting,” Grant said Friday.

Costigan said she selected the Maine Square Mall site after a six-month search for a site with the right zoning and parking. The reason the company wants to move into Maine is its nationally publicized opiate addiction problem.

“The state of Maine as a whole has a problem,” she said. “I’m not creating the problem. I’m trying to help with it.”

Though the clinic has its critics, not all tenants are firmly against it.

“At this time, we have chosen not to oppose it,” Monica Cameron, owner of Malibu Tans, said Friday. She said she is still learning about Colonial and its plans and won’t take sides until she can make an informed choice.

“I’m certainly not happy about it,” she said, “But we know there’s definitely a need for it. I think if it can help even one person, it would be worth it.”

Cameron said, however, she would prefer the clinic open in a medical setting.

During her visit to Bangor, Costigan said she’s been monitoring parking at the mall and believed that the clinic won’t have much of an impact on existing parking needs. The bulk of the 250 to 300 clients Colonial ultimately plans to serve will visit from 5:30 or 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. Most existing Maine Square businesses don’t open until 9 a.m., 9:30 a.m. or 10 a.m.

“It’ll never be that there are 350 people here at once,” she said. She said, however, that Colonial intends to police the parking lot and, if necessary, hire security.