Some London city councillors are calling for a review of the city's two month old methadone clinic bylaw following a story CTV News broke on Wednesday.
It's about how a controversial clinic on Wharncliffe Road South found a way to side-step the rules.
It has not and has no intention to seek zoning to operate as a methadone clinic.
City Councillor Harold Usher says it would have been nice to get a heads up.
"We amended it to operate as a methadone clinic. If they want to do less, or if anybody wants to do less than that, it just seems a courtesy to come back to us and say we're not going to use it for that any more," Usher says.
The revelation comes after years of emotional public meetings and a year-and-a-half long moratorium on new methadone clinics.
But according to the lawyer for the facility, it is not a methadone clinic because it does not have a pharmacy onsite that dispenses methadone.
It does have doctors who treat patients with the medicine and the property is currently zoned as a doctor's office.
"When we make these decisions we don't make them lightly," adds Usher.
Under the bylaw, a methadone clinic cannot be located within 300 metres of a school. The intent is to keep a buffer between children and any undesirable element, such as drug dealers.
But a clinic zoned simply as a doctor's office has no such restrictions, and could theoretically be located right next to a school.
"It is a bit of a flaw in the law there or it's a grey area, so we will have to review it just to make sure that we don't find ourselves in the middle of another controversy," says Councillor Bill Armstrong.
Councillor Denise Brown doesn't buy the clinic's argument. She says the bylaw comes down to interpretation.
"That lawyer could be wrong, I need to hear from our legal staff to see how this can be happening. Because we cannot allow this to happen in this city. We have a bylaw in place. We need to make sure that it's foolproof and so that it cannot occur that anyone can open anywhere."
