Tuttle Still Opposes Clinic

City Councilman Edd Tuttle said he may present information Tuesday that he hopes will lead to the closure of a methadone clinic on the edge of the Carmelitos housing project in Long Beach. Tuttle said recently that some of the 300 former heroin addicts who patronize West Coast Medical Clinic on Atlantic Avenue may also be committing crimes in the area. He asked the city manager to research whether the city can revoke the clinic’s business license.

But City Manager James Hankla said the city lacks a “supportable foundation for (business) license revocation” because the clinic meets city zoning, occupancy and licensing requirements and has no history of complaints or zone violations.

The Police Department reported that major crimes increased from 405 to 577 per year in the reporting areas around the clinic from July, 1982, when it opened, through last year, but that there is no way to link methadone patients to those crimes.

West Coast Medical Clinic owner Steve Watt has denied Tuttle’s allegations. Watt said his clinic actually reduces crime because without methadone, addicts would return to stealing to support their heroin habits.