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By Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Daily
A drug treatment center is suffering a withdrawal of state support.
Construction on a Sheepshead Bay substance-abuse treatment center was halted after Assemblyman Steve Cymbrowitz and Community Board 15 chairwoman Theresa Scavo took state officials to task for approving the rehab facility to locate in an apartment building on E. 21st Street filled with children.
“You can see children’s toys out on the terraces of the building,” said Cymbrowitz. “The siting is horrendous and doesn’t make any sense.”
The Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services, which has final say on drug treatment facilities’ right to operate, had granted the First Steps to Recovery substance-abuse treatment center “contingent approval” to begin setting up a facility at the residential building between Jerome and Voorhies avenues.
Following a heated meeting Cymbrowitz and Scavo held with officials from the state agency and the city Department of Health, state officials sent First Step’s owner, Igor Beregnoi, a letter telling him to “cease and desist” any further construction at the location.
Scavo described the meeting as “less than cordial.”
“We sat down with OASAS and the city health department and tried to figure out who dropped the ball and how these people got okayed,” she said.
The assemblyman hailed the state’s decision to listen to local’s concerns.
“This is a hopeful sign,” Cymbrowitz said. “And it’s the first indication in this whole, poorly handled process that the community is actually being heard.”
Cymbrowitz also lambasted the agency for giving First Steps to Recovery the right to build in the first place. He told the state to improve its review process — or else. As chairman of the Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Committee, which oversees the agency, he could impose changes through legislation.
“Those weren’t miscommunications,” Cymbrowitz said. “Those were major screw-ups.”
Stewart Gross, who has lived in the E. 21st Street apartment building for more than 30 years, said the basement space First Steps wants to move into has in the past been occupied by doctors’ and dentists’ offices. However, he said the last practitioner left after Hurricane Sandy flooded his offices.
Gross said that if the drug clinic acquires the approval to move in, he wouldn’t think twice about moving out. He envisions Sheepshead Bay becoming a crime-ridden haven for vagrants if Beregnoi gets his way.
“If it does go through, you’ll see a big change,” said Gross. “You’ll see crime, a lot of crime, and homeless people. You can’t have this in New York next to residential buildings.”
Beregnoi, a licensed psychologist, says his business and clients are being brutally misrepresented. All his patients seeking treatment for drug abuse do so of their own free will, he said, and none of them are criminals.
“Cymbrowitz thinks that we’re going to literally pollute the neighborhood,” said Beregnoi. “Right now we don’t have anyone who was sent to us from jail. We don’t even have anyone who had a DUI.”
The psychologist described his patients as elderly Russians, who seek treatment for prescription pill abuse and alcoholism. He called them “relatively harmless.”
First Steps to Recovery does not prescribe habit-forming drugs often associated with drug rehabilitation, such as Suboxone and methadone, according to Beregnoi.
The psychologist also expressed frustration at the state’s indecisiveness. He said their “contingent approval,” which allowed him to start renovating the offices at E. 21st Street, may now amount to little more than a waste of money.
“For Mr. Cymbrowitz it’s nothing, but for me it’s everything,” Beregnoi said. “We’re not plastic surgeons, we don’t make as much money as other professions. For me every dollar helps.”
The Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services did not return calls for comment.
Reach reporter Colin Mixson at cmixson@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4514.