City of Rochester
News Release
(Monday, Nov. 21, 2016) — Mayor Lovely A. Warren announced today that the City of Rochester has launched a comprehensive operation to reverse the plague of heroin sales and use along North Clinton Avenue.
“Just like heroin destroys the minds and bodies of its users, it is destroying this neighborhood,” Mayor Warren said. “Today, I am proud to announce that we have staged an intervention and we are going to detoxify North Clinton Avenue. I fully understand the complex realities of drug addiction and realize we cannot eliminate heroin use in our city overnight. But the first step of recovery is to handle the most pressing crisis – and this neighborhood is in crisis. We are going to purge heroin from this neighborhood and deal with what comes next.”
Mayor Warren’s North Clinton Avenue anti-heroin operation involves three areas of focus in the area between Upper Falls Boulevard and Avenue D: law enforcement, addiction treatment and the environmental conditions of the neighborhood.
The focus on enforcement involves a large increase of police presence. Extra patrols are assigned to the area from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. They are arresting dealers and users and recovering drugs and guns. Officers re-direct traffic, which makes it more difficult to complete a transaction.
The focus on treatment requires the cooperation of community partners, which Mayor Warren is working to secure. She is seeking legislative and judicial remedies that will enable officers to detain users and bring them to “drop-off” treatment centers operated by such agencies as Rochester Regional Health.
“I know I can’t stop every user from buying heroin,” Mayor Warren said. “But I can make it very, very clear that they are not welcome in this neighborhood.
And I am not afraid to use all the tools at our disposal to get that message across. It is not fair to these residents. They – and I – have had enough.”
The focus on environmental cleanup in the neighborhood is being led by the Department of Environmental Services (DES). Last month, DES installed fencing and barricades around a portion of Don Samuel Torres Park because it had become an open-air drug market. Because it is a public park, police had no legal means to deter loitering in the area.
DES crews have also launched an intensive cleanup of the side streets along North Clinton, including Kappel Place, Scrantom Street and Evergreen Street. Crews have cleaned hundreds of spent needles from vacant houses along these streets, which were used as “shooting galleries” where users would inject themselves with heroin after their purchase.
Trees, shrubs and vines have been cut away from power lines and fences to eliminate blind spots. And a well-used short cut between Kappel Place and Princeton Street – which offered dealers a quick escape from police – has been closed with a wall of concrete blocks. New LED street lights have been installed to improve lighting along the streets.
Mayor Warren is also working with service agencies such as Rochester Regional Health, Trillium Health and Monroe County Department of Health, which operate needle give-away programs to reduce the spread of disease. She is asking the partners to help the City keep used needles off the streets and away from parks, playgrounds and schools.
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News Media: For more information, contact Interactive Media Editor Patrick Flanigan at 428-7135.