Methadone clinic may not get started
PERRY TWP. – A methadone clinic may not be coming to the township after all. Perry Township supervisors announced Tuesday that Fayette County Judge Steve P. Leskinen recently ruled in favor of the township, overturning a ruling made by the county’s Zoning Hearing Board (ZHB) in May 2005 that granted a special exception for a methadone clinic to open in the township.
However, Supervisor A.J. Boni said Leskinen’s favorable ruling doesn’t mean the methadone clinic still may not receive permission to open in the township.
“The battle’s over, but the war’s still on,” he said.
In March 2006, lawyers representing the township and Frazier School District asked Leskinen to overturn the ruling, saying it would be unsafe for a methadone clinic to be located at the proposed area, noting that the clinic would be close to a school and located on an already unsafe section of Route 51.
The proposed clinic, which would administer methadone, an opiate drug used in substitution therapy to treat people addicted to heroin and other opiates, was to open in a former lawn tractor shop on Route 51 at the intersection of Rehoboth Church Road. The property is zoned B-1 (business).
According to court documents, Lawrence A. Bujdos owned the property in question and had a tentative sales agreement with Louis Waller Jr. and Steve Shanner at the time the case was before Leskinen. The ZHB gave Shanner permission to operate a clinic on the property when they granted the special exception.
Before the ZHB in early 2005, Shanner testified the clinic would treat between 200 and 250 a month, noting, however, that many of those people would need daily treatments. The clinic, according to Shanner’s previous testimony, would be open from 5:30 to 11 a.m., Monday through Friday.
Perry Township solicitor Donald McCue said Leskinen’s ruling means that the case will now be remanded to the ZHB for further review.
McCue said he does not believe the proposed methadone clinic meets all local and state regulations and said the board can’t grant a special exception unless it does.
The ZHB will hear the case at a time and date to be announced later.