ROCKLAND – A proposed methadone clinic is turning nonprofit and working on an affiliation with a local hospital to make itself more palatable to officials and residents who oppose it.

“It’s an effort to compromise,” Angel Fuller-McMahan, owner of the planned Turning Tide clinic, said Tuesday outside City Hall. “It [doesn’t] matter to me whether it’s for-profit or nonprofit.”

Fuller-McMahan, of Owls Head, is the principal investor of Turning Tide, which she owns with Marty O’Brien of Bath, a counselor at Discovery House in South Portland.

“Turning Tide is pursuing a meeting with some representatives affiliated with Penobscot Bay Medical Center,” she said Tuesday. “If anybody is going to be satisfied, this is going to do it.” Fuller-McMahan would not elaborate on the prospect of gaining an affiliation with the hospital.

The business partners have been confronted with much opposition by local residents – some do not want a methadone clinic at its proposed location at 77 Park St., which is considered the “gateway to Rockland,” while others do not want it anywhere in town.

Many people have been skeptical about the clinic’s “for- profit” status. So on Tuesday, Fuller-McMahan asked her attorney to switch Turning Tide’s tax status to nonprofit.

Now, Fuller-McMahan is faced with the City Council possibly forcing her clinic outside city limits.

On Tuesday, Fuller-McMahan and supporter Kelli Kinney of Spruce Head met with City Manager Tom Hall regarding a discussion that took place at Monday night’s council session. Hall could not be reached for comment.

Councilors suggested the city change zoning to allow only a “sole-source pharmacy,” such as a methadone clinic, in the TB-3 or transitional business zone, City Attorney Greg Dorr said Tuesday, noting the council is also considering other alternatives. The only TB-3 zone in Rockland is located on a short stretch of Route 90, meaning Turning Tide would have to locate there.

The sole item on Monday’s council agenda was to talk about the combined sewer overflow project in the south end. Councilors ended up discussing the methadone clinic for about 45 minutes, Dorr said.

In planning for Thursday’s council meeting with Knox County legislators, the council asked Dorr to draft a retroactive “sole-source pharmacy” ordinance, thus affecting Turning Tide’s plans, Dorr said.

“It wasn’t an action item,” Dorr said, explaining that the council wants something to work with Thursday. “There was certainly agreement the TB-3 zone would be appropriate.”

Dorr explained that the city ordinances do not define clinic, which will be defined as a sole-source pharmacy.

As soon as Fuller-McMahan heard about the council move, she was at City Hall asking Dorr and Hall questions.

“If enacted, it would apply to you,” Dorr told the women. “You can have a zoning ordinance that is retroactive. Even with a lease, you don’t have a vested right.”

“They want me to reconstruct my whole business,” Fuller-McMahan said. “If that’s what I have to do to get that lifesaving medical treatment in this community, that’s what I’ll have to do.”

The self-described recovering heroin addict said she looked all over town and in Rockport for a suitable location for the clinic before settling on 77 Park St.

“I went into the code enforcement office and asked where I could go,” she said. “This is where they told me to go.”

After meeting with Hall, she said, “They want me to move it into someone else’s town – it was a strong suggestion.” City officials are concerned about traffic and the proximity of the clinic to the Head Start building, she said.

Before the City Council acts on any zone changes, Fuller-McMahan hopes to find a more acceptable location for the clinic.

“That’s what they’ll draft unless we can come up with someplace else,” she said.