When former Glen Burnie pizza shop owner Joel Prell wanted to distribute regulated narcotics to heroin addicts in a quiet Pikesville neighborhood, the local county council had to do everything in its power to stop him.
That?s what attorneys told a federal judge Tuesday as they defended members of the Baltimore County Council against claims they passed a discriminatory zoning law to keep a methadone clinic out of a neighborhood. Opening statements began before U.S. District Judge Catherine Blake in the case that tests the 2002 county zoning ruling and will determine if the Pikesville clinic can stay open.
The clinic?s attorneys said a county law banning methadone clinics, which treat heroin addicts using a synthetic narcotic, from neighborhoods violates the Americans with Disabilities Act. County lawyers said recovering drug addicts do not meet the legal definition of disabled. They said the council was responding to the community?s wishes.
“Criminality isn?t protected by the ADA,” said attorney Paul Mayhew said. “If it were, we?d have to run down to the police station and let half of them out.”
But clinic attorney Steve Barber described the county council, specifically Kevin Kamenetz, D-District 2, as scheming and desperate to block the unpopular clinic in an election year.
“They were motivated by stereotypes and bias against drug addiction,” Barber said. “[Clinic patients] are trying to do the right thing. They are former drug abusers, not current drug abusers.”
Barber said the clinic is safe, located adjacent to a police station and among other medical clinics and businesses. He said the state and county approved Prell?s permits and supported the facility until community opposition heightened. He said residents called Prell a drug dealer and protested at his home after he tried to host an information meeting at the clinic.
