After years of emotional community meetings and a moratorium that lasted a year and a half, a Wharncliffe Road medical clinic that treats addicts has side-stepped a bylaw that would have made it a methadone clinic.
The lawyer for Ontario Addiction Treatment Centre says it has not applied for a methadone licence and does not plan to.
In a statement to CTV News, attorney Alan Patton says: "The medical facility at 425 Wharncliffe Road South is not operating as a methadone clinic as defined in the city bylaw, because there is no pharmacist onsite dispensing methadone."
The revelation follows Tuesday's council meeting in which council directed staff to investigate why the facility is not following site plan provisions for what they believed was a methadone clinic.
Those provisions include a wrought iron fence, clear throat access as opposed to open access and decorative stones instead of armour stone.
Patton says even though doctors at the facility prescribe and administer methadone, the clinic does not dispense methadone to a single person and does not have a pharmacy onsite.
Patton adds it will not be applying for a methadone licence.
President of the Old South Community Organization, Bob Porter says he's shocked, "I was ignorant, just like anyone else."
Porter adds there have been no problems with traffic, loitering or drug pushers preying on clients at 425 Wharncliffe as was previously feared.
But he was shocked when CTV News informed him about the loophole.
"I assumed it fell under the parameters of all their clinics. Whether this will be an issue will be up to council and the legal department to decide if this will create any major problems," Porter says.
