Council and residents press New Seasons clinic on neighborhood impacts, hours and permit conditions

Biloxi city officials, neighborhood residents and representatives of New Seasons Treatment Center discussed the Broadwater methadone clinic’s community impacts and permit conditions during the April 8 Biloxi City Council meeting. Clinic CEO Jim Shaheen and local program staff described treatment outcomes, security steps and ownership responses to neighborhood complaints while council members pressed for details on hours of operation and compliance with the clinic’s conditional-use permit.

Why it matters: Council members said they must balance access to opioid treatment with livability for adjacent residents. The discussion followed multiple resident complaints about trash, parking spillover and public safety near the clinic and came ahead of a scheduled town hall on the property the next week.

Shaheen said New Seasons operates opioid treatment programs widely and defended the clinic’s practices. “We treat addiction,” he said, adding that methadone is used to prevent painful withdrawal and to reduce illicit opioid effects. He said the Biloxi clinic treats roughly 400 patients and, “1 patient of the 400 is homeless,” to dispute claims that the clinic is driving homelessness in the area. Shaheen said New Seasons has treated about 2,500 local patients over several years and that the company distributes naloxone (Narcan) and tracks outcomes nationally.

Council members and nearby business owners described continuing complaints. Councilman Lawrence said the neighborhood was promised one set of daily hours when the permit was originally discussed and asked whether the clinic now operates later hours. Dane Jensen, the program director at the Biloxi Treatment Center, told the council that dosing hours are 05:30 a.m. to 11 a.m., and that the clinic’s business hours are 05:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Jensen said the clinic’s expanded dosing window was adopted because higher census made earlier hours impractical.

On compliance and controls, Shaheen described changes New Seasons made after complaints: added video surveillance, a lock on the dumpster, contracted cleanup three days a week, and staff “milieu managers” who monitor the parking area and the immediate site during hours of operation. “If they happen to go in and create any type of diversion or wanna sell their prescriptions, they’re out of the clinic,” Jensen said. Shaheen said patients who diverted medication would be discharged.

Council members asked about take-home doses, a frequent point of contention in public comment. Shaheen and Jensen described federal rules and clinic practices: patients earn additional take-home privileges after time in treatment and regular monitoring; take-home doses are placed in secured containers. Shaheen said federal opioid-treatment rules set “the gold standard of care” and limit how clinics may alter take-home policies.

On the legal/permit side, council members and staff gave competing recollections of the hours written into approvals. Council members said earlier council action recorded clinic hours at 05:30 a.m. to 10 a.m.; Creel (city staff) said the conditional-use permit dated April 5, 2016, shows 05:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. Council members pressed staff to reconcile the records at a follow-up meeting.

Public commenters included patients and local employees who said the clinic enabled employment, recovery and daily functioning; others described trash, loitering and safety concerns in nearby streets and a nearby vacant lot. Several residents asked that the council enforce permit conditions or consider revocation if conditions are violated. Council members repeatedly said the city must honor the limits of its authority while ensuring neighborhood safety.

The conversation did not include a council motion or formal action to change the clinic’s permit. Multiple speakers encouraged residents to attend the town hall meeting scheduled for 6 p.m. the following Tuesday at the Civic Center to continue the conversation.