The South Burlington School Board is appealing a decision by the state environmental court that allowed a drug treatment center to stay open, WCAX reports.
Wednesday night the South Burlington School board voted to pursue an appeal with the state Supreme Court to keep the clinic away from the city's schools.
The appeal comes after the clinic, operated by HowardCenter, opened in September to treat opiate addiction by providing methadone and buprenorphine to addicts.
The environmental court issued its decision on the issue last month, in which Judge Thomas Walsh said the clinic - now located in what used to be a cardiologist's office - shouldn't be treated differently from other medical facilities.
“To treat the proposed methadone clinic differently from other medical office uses would be to consider the identity of the operator beyond the type of land use,” Walsh wrote. “We have specifically held that in considering land use applications the body administering the regulations should not consider the identity of the landowner.”
If the Supreme Court reverses that decision, HowardCenter will have to go through a comprehensive permitting process in order to continue operations.
