CLINIC PLAN PROVOKES DISBELIEF, SURPRISE

BRISTOL -- Reaction from neighboring businesses and residents to a
Farmington Avenue methadone clinic, which is scheduled to open early next
year, ranged from disbelief and surprise to no comment.

"It's just not right," said Solange Sirois, whose Elizabeth Road home is to
the rear of the clinic. "There should have been a petition or some
discussion," she said. "I can't believe it."

"Was there a vote?" asked Loukesha Ray, whose home on Stafford Avenue also
overlooks the clinic site. "The way this was handled -- there was no
community involvement to say the least."

"This is not the place for it," said Joanne Jacquemin, who runs a
hairdressing shop next door to the clinic site. "It shouldn't be here next
to businesses. It should be connected with the hospital."Jacquemin said she
has a large number of older people using her services and she is concerned
about how the methadone clinic clientele will mix with her customers.

A stateauthority on methadone, however, offered a more reassuring assessment.

"They [neighbors] need to understand these are people in treatment and not
hanging around," said Sam Segal, senior clinical officer and policy officer
of addiction services for the state's Department of Mental Heath and
Addictions Services. With methadone it is very unlikely they will be using
other substances. In terms of community education, people have prejudices
and don't respond to accurate information. [A community] needs to provide
appropriate access for behavioral health treatment. At some point they will
accept it,"

Segal said use of opiates has been increasing since 1997 and street heroin
has gotten cheaper. Segal said existing clinics are overcrowded. "We are
not importing addicts" from other areas, Segal said, explaining clients
have a right "to move to their home community [for treatment] and the
community has a responsibility to allow treatment and not ship them out."

Two national businesses will have operations near the clinic, including one
that has not started building.

"We are used to operating in many diverse communities," said a spokesperson
for Home Depot from headquarters in Georgia. The chain plans to open a
store across from the clinic sometime in the fall of 2002 and the company's
representative said decisions to build new stores are based on where the
customers are perceived to be.

Kindercare Learning Centers, with headquarters in Oregon, has a daycare
program a few doors away from the clinic. A spokesperson with that company
said it has no comment.

"It came about in a surprise fashion," said Tim Chapulis said who owns
Tim's Antiques about a block west of where the clinic is. Chapulis called
the methadone clinic "an instant disruption of the neighborhood."

"As a business man and a property owner, I do not think the clinic is in
the best interests of the city and the neighborhoods," Chapulis said
pointing out the healthy economic climate along the west end of Route 6 in
Bristol. "It doesn't fit ..in this retail -oriented" area, Chapulis said. A
hospital setting or area with "more guidance" would make more sense, he said.

If there is a public information meeting and enough people show up, the
Hartford Dispensary "might rethink its location," Chapulis said.

"They didn't ask for input from the area residents and businesses and
property owners. People do not have a lot of knowledge and it is a big
mistake. It was one of the least uses for the area. I don't see it as
anything as a business person that it would help and that is sad," he said.