News traveled fast last week to the Man Alive methadone clinic in south Charles Village.

Client Melissa Callaway, 35, said she already knew that another methadone clinic had just opened in Hampden.

Callaway, of Waverly, said she's originally from Hampden, and is glad there's finally a clinic to treat heroin addicts in that area.

"There are people there that need that," she said Feb. 3 as she smoked on the steps of Man Alive at Maryland Avenue and 21st Street.

But she said she was surprised when she heard the news and a little worried about how her old neighborhood might react.

'I thought, 'They're not going to like that.' "

Bruce Bryan sure doesn't. The owner of Bryan's Finds & Designs said he moved his store in November from 24th and Charles streets to The Avenue in Hampden because he was fed up with methadone clinic clients loitering and panhandling around his old store.

"They bug people," Bryan said.

He said they were bad for business, and that monthly sales have doubled in the two months since he moved.

But last week, the new methadone clinic, Hampden Health Solutions at the Rail, Inc., opened at 3612 Falls Road, less than a block from Bryan's relocated store.

"It makes me angry," he said, threatening to picket the new clinic. "I'll stand outside there with a sign if I have to."

The Hampden Village Merchants Association opposes the clinic, too, saying its location is too close to businesses, as well as the Hampden Family Center, Roosevelt Recreation Center and three schools.

There is nothing legally to stop the clinic from being there, according to Baltimore City zoning laws, said City Council member Mary Pat Clarke, who also opposes the clinic.

"We want to be an asset to the community," clinic owner Moshe Markowitz told Benn Ray, merchants association president, last week. Ray invited Markowitz to the association's next meeting Feb. 10.

Callaway said she doesn't blame merchants for being angry, "but if you put a clinic there, it'll stop a lot of the drugs."

But Bryan said, based on his experience in south Charles Village for two years, that a methadone clinic is bad for Hampden.

"It'll ruin this nighborhood quick. It's like putting a big bees nest in and thinking no one's going to get stung," he said.

Transient traffic

South Charles Village is the closest comparison Hampden has to the potential effect of a methadone clinic. Man Alive is one of two at 21st Street and Maryland Avenue, four blocks from Bryan's old store. The other is Institutes for Behavior Resources across the street from Man Alive.

Bryan said he believes there's another methadone clinic even closer to his old store, and several shopkeepers in the area agreed. But the Messenger couldn't find one. Northern District police say the only two methadone clinics they know of in the area are Man Alive and IBR. David Hill, executive director of the Charles Village Benefits District is in agreement.

Doug Gibson, a Northern District community liaison officer, said methadone clinic clients are sometimes a problem in the area, causing "a lot of transient traffic" with their high concentration of social services and health care providers.

Police meet quarterly with providers in the area to discuss crime and nuisance-related problems, Gibson and Hill said.

"It's just a continuing issue and something that needs to be constantly monitored," Hill said.

He said Karen Reese, Man Alive's executive director, has been invited to join the benefits district's board of directors.

"She represents an important constituency in Charles Village that should be represented," Hill said.

"They're really strict down here," Callaway sad. "No loitering. The police come and write you up."

Dealing drugs

Gibson said some of the people loitering or panhandling in the area are not necessarily methadone clients, but clients of other providers or friends giving them rides.

Hill said some have darker agendas.

"Outsiders come in and take advantage of them and deal drugs," Hill said.

Merchants around Bryan's old shop have mixed opinions on how much of a problem clinics are.

John Clemmer is co-owner with his wife, Esther Armstrong, of Sankofa African and World Baazar in Charles Village. A self-described liberal, he said he doesn't mind people in the area asking him for a little bit of money or offering to wash his car windows for money. But he said he sees a problem "when a guy talks to you, and in the middle of the sentence he nods off."

"They come in and chill. They get their hair cut and leave," said Will Logan, cutting hair at the barber shop Reflection Eternal on North Charles Street.

Some sleep in the chair, he said.

But while some in the Charles Village area are sanguine, Toni James is not.

"Every day, all day, they hang out," said James, a patient representative at Multi Specialty Health Care, a medical group practice in the same block as Man Alive and IBR.

"They try to bother the patients. They bum money. They swear at you if you don't have any," James said.

Unfair comparison?

Gibson said comparisons between south Charles Village and Hampden are unfair, because Hampden only has one methadone clinic, not the "systemic problem" police see in south Charles Village.

Gibson said one methadone clinic won't hurt Hampden and could help.

"The upside is that every one of the people who are in that program successfully are not going to be smashing car windows to get loose change to buy heroin," he said.

Hill suggested cooperation.

"The main thing is that they get together and start talking about the issues and see if there are ways they can live together amicably," Hill said.

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user comments (1)

user jack says...

this guy is selfish

Posted 2:18 PM, 02.14.10

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