DRUG CLINIC EYES MOVE

February 19, 2013

Craig Monfette runs a daycare near the Union Street BAART office and is worried about the methadone center moving in. Photo: Christopher Roy

NEWPORT CITY - For the past seven and a half years, the Behavioral Health Services (BAART) dispensed methadone from a van at the recycling center on Coventry Street. Now officials from the organization want to dispense the drug from a Union Street site, the same site a gunman recently tried to rob for drugs.
Although permission is not needed, because the building is zoned as a clinic, BAART Director Alan Aiken spoke to the city council Monday evening. He is concerned that some clients walk to the Coventry Street site before sunrise and risk being hit by a vehicle. Aiken is also concerned that someone might try to rob that site.
"If this had happened at the dispensing site, they would have walked away with a lot of a methadone," said Aiken of the robbery attempt.

For the rest of this story, see page 1 of Wednesday's Newport Daily Express for Feb. 20, 2013.