Norway, Paris and Oxford will hold meetings in the next several weeks to decide whether to extend local bans on methadone clinics another six months.
Already the moratorium has been in effect for six months, and may be extended only another 180 days.
Oxford will hold a public hearing at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 1, at the town office.
Norway has scheduled a special town meeting at 7 p.m. Dec. 15 so citizens can vote whether to stretch the moratorium.
And Paris will likely hold a special town meeting Jan. 9 before the selectmen’s meeting.
Town Manager David Holt said Wednesday that when residents of Paris and Norway first voted to implement a ban on methadone clinics last summer, they made an addendum giving the responsibility of extending the moratorium to townspeople.
After a for-profit developer approached local officials about the possibility of opening a clinic in the area, the towns reacted quickly by passing a moratorium last summer. This move gave officials time to learn about methadone clinics and to look into revising site-review standards to gain better control if a developer proposed building a clinic in the area.
Methadone is a treatment for addicts of opiate drugs, like heroin.
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