Baltimore County (Map, News) - A private methadone clinic proposed on a site less than 100 feet from neighboring homes in Fullerton must relocate, Baltimore County’s zoning commissioner has ruled recently.

The April 24 ruling on a request for an exemption to a county law requiring medical clinics — including methadone facilities — to be at least 750 feet from homes is a victory for neighbors who say the drug clinic poses a safety hazard to children who play in a stream on the property. More than 700 signed a petition urging zoning Commissioner William Wiseman to deny the permit.

“The Christian part of you knows there is a need for this,” said Mark McQuade, who lives with four children just behind the site. “The other part says it doesn’t belong near families. I don’t fault the need, I fault the location.”

The location of methadone clinics, which treat heroin addicts with a synthetic opiate, has been a contentious issue in the county, where four for-profit clinics have opened since 2002. The owner of the first, a Helping Hand in Pikesville, fought a county statute requiring the clinics to be at least 750 feet from homes in federal court.

In February, a panel of judges on the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, one level below the U.S. Supreme Court, said the council did not provide the owner of a Pikesville methadone clinic due process when the law was passed in 2002. But the judges left open a debate on whether the law — passed after clinic neighbors complained about crime associated with drug addicts — violated the Americans With Disabilities Act.

The judges remanded the question to federal district court, and until that happens, the county is free to enforce the law, officials said.

Louis Glick, an attorney for the Fullerton clinic’s owner, Mark Melenders, could not be reached for comment Wednesday. Glick has said previously he would appeal Wiseman’s ruling if necessary.

Les Pittler, an attorney representing community leaders, said Glick argued that the site’s steep ravines, streambed and heavy brush provided a natural buffer from nearby homes. In his opinion, Wiseman said distance requirements should be measured along a horizontal plane, regardless of topography.

The ruling could have implications for future requests for waivers from distance requirements — which are in place for everything from cell towers to strip clubs to cemeteries, Wiseman said — based on irregular terrain arguments.

“This is a distance requirement — it can’t be varied,” Pittler said. “It is what it is.”

jmalarkey@baltimoreexaminer.com