You can’t make this stuff up. Almost:
Mayor Bill de Blasio on Friday revealed four sites where he plans to open controversial drug-injection centers — and they are near schools and in the heart of stroller-mom territory. The proposed sites — where addicts would be allowed to inject illegal drugs under supervision — are located on the Park Slope-Boerum Hill border in Brooklyn, in Hell’s Kitchen and Washington Heights in Manhattan and in Longwood in the Bronx.
And residents are fuming. “It’s not a good idea at all. We have kids to raise,” said Keisha Brandon, a 28-year-old mother of two from Park Slope. Nobody should be able to shoot up legally. That’s saying to kids that people are allowed to do it, so it’s a possibility for you.”
Yeah, well — tough. This is what you vote for when you vote for “compassion,” “tolerance,” and “fairness.” Even former addicts think it’s a bad idea (which of course it is):
“People will line up in the streets,” said Marg Flynn, a 72-year-old recovering addict who lives near the Hell’s Kitchen site and has been sober for 33 years. “It’s already God-awful here on Ninth Avenue. It’s a high-pedestrian area off the Theater District, lots of restaurants. If a junkie is in need of a fix, there are plenty of opportunities to rob people, especially on weekends.”
The supervised sites, which could be changed later, would be set up in existing needle-exchange centers and be part of a one-year overdose-prevention pilot program. De Blasio and other proponents say the facilities would give drug users a safe place to inject heroin amid a national opioid crisis.
As a famous “progressive” once said, never let a crisis go to waste. And just look at his town — Chicago — now!
They argue that the sites would move drug users and their needles indoors, away from park benches and fast-food restrooms.
Answering questions on Twitter Friday, mayoral spokesman Eric Phillips said people who shoot up at the centers would still be barred from using drugs outside — but added that they would be allowed to carry their dope back and forth on the street without being subjected to police searches.
Still, a law enforcement source wondered if, under the program, anyone found with drugs on the street could simply tell cops, “Hey, I was just heading to a facility.”
Ya think?
On the other hand, who says there’s no good news out of New York these days?
JetBlue Airways Corp., which is headquartered in New York, says it has partnered with a Harlem pizzeria for the special promotion. WNBC-TV reports customers in the Los Angeles area can choose between a plain cheese pizza and a pepperoni pizza.
The plain pizza will cost $12 and the pepperoni will cost $15. JetBlue says it will only deliver 350 pizzas a day. Los Angeles residents can place orders at jetblue.pizza and only certain zip codes will be available for delivery. Pizza tracking will be available on the site as well. The promotion runs from May 9 through May 11.
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