DETESTED CLINIC ORDERED TO CLOSE

On the footpath outside his Fairfield real estate office, Josi Mendoza
can hear the throaty drawls of half a dozen methadone users who have
gathered in the sun.

As they sway from side to side, Mr Mendoza's blood pressure rises
until he is so angry he almost spits as he speaks.

"Every day. Every day those bastards are there," he said. "Do you
think that is good for business? No. We had to disconnect the
air-conditioner out the back because they kept breaking it to get
water for their hits."

Across the road is the Barbara Street methadone clinic, where hundreds
of addicts walk in daily to pick up their fix.

Mountains of research on methadone concludes that it dramatically
reduces property crime. It is a simple equation: when people use
heroin, they steal to support their habit - up to 18 burglaries a
month - and when they are on methadone they don't.

But that is often little consolation to people living and working near
methadone clinics. Public pressure and concerns about the privately
run Barbara Street clinic have been so great that the Health
Department has ordered it to close, but its owners have gone to court
to keep it open.

A spokeswoman for the Minister for Health, Mr Knowles, said that if
the clinic were closed another service would open in the area "to suit
the needs of the community better and at a more appropriate location".

According to Superintendent Chris Evans, there has been a "fair degree
of trouble" at the Fairfield clinic, which attracts users from outside
the area.

However, he said two other methadone clinics within his area of
Greater Hume were both well run and caused few problems. The head of
the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, Dr Don Weatherburn, is a strong
supporter of methadone clinics as a means of crime-prevention, and is
pleased about Government moves to expand the program.

"Governments have recognised that the problem of drug crime can be
tackled by the treatment of addicts rather the the lock them up and
throw away the key attitude of the past," Dr Weatherburn said.

But the president of the Fairfield Chamber of Commerce, Mr Sil
Frassetto, who has an architectural design business near the clinic,
described the users as "our daily bane". Shoplifting was a problem,
and staff and customers felt threatened, he said.

Ms Vea Hehepoto lives next door to the clinic with her husband and
children. She does not like the clinic, and the users scare her and
the children.

Because they use the tap in her yard to get water to shoot up, she is
concerned about needles and sweeps the yard daily. "But they are sick
people," she said. "They need to get their medicine to survive..."