Philly City Council members move to ban supervised injection sites in about half the city

Five Philadelphia City Council members are moving to prohibit supervised drug consumption sites from opening in their districts, meaning the facilities could be effectively banned in about half the city if the legislation becomes law.

The bill was introduced Thursday by Councilmember Quetcy Lozada, whose Kensington-based district has been the epicenter of the city’s opioid crisis. Four other district Council members signed on to the zoning legislation, meaning it would cover large swaths of Northeast Philadelphia, the Riverwards, and all of South Philadelphia.

The news comes just five days before the May 16 primary election, when Council members are running to retain their seats. Lozada, who has been in office for less than a year, is facing a Democratic primary challenger and has struggled with fundraising.

It also comes as lawmakers in Harrisburg consider a statewide ban on supervised consumption sites, and as the nonprofit spearheading plans to open a site in Philadelphia remains embroiled in litigation over its efforts.

Lozada said Thursday that opening a supervised consumption site would serve only to exacerbate the open-air drug market that has plagued Kensington for years. Lozada said Kensington needs a “Marshall Plan,” a reference to the massive American recovery effort in Europe after World War II, that’s focused on getting as many people as possible into recovery.

“We cannot continue to allow them to find ways where they can continue to remain in the same cycle,” she said. “The decisions that are going to come in the future are going to be difficult.”

It wasn’t yet clear Thursday whether the bill was on track for passage before Council’s summer break in July and August. Scheduling is largely up to Council President Darrell L. Clarke, who isn’t seeking reelection and did not include his North Philadelphia-based 5th District in the legislation.

The legislation will be referred to a Council committee, which must hold a hearing before a vote takes place. If the legislation moves out of committee, it would need to be voted on twice by the full Council and then signed by the mayor in order to become law.

Sarah Peterson, a spokesperson for Mayor Jim Kenney, said the administration remained supportive of supervised consumption sites.

“The overdose crisis in Philadelphia takes more than 1,200 lives every year and as this crisis worsens, we believe it is critical to use every available method to save lives,” she said.

Kenney is term-limited, and 10 candidates are vying to replace him. Of the five top contenders for the Democratic nomination, three have said they oppose establishing a supervised consumption site.

» READ MORE: Community groups, police union mobilizing against proposed supervised injection site as negotiations continue

If it makes it out of committee, the bill would be likely to pass Council, given the body’s powerful tradition of councilmanic prerogative, or the practice that district council members have near-total control over land-use decisions in their districts.

Besides Lozada’s 7th District, the zoning overlay would also apply to:

Driscoll, who is running unopposed in the Democratic primary, said a supervised consumption site in his district could attract “a new open air drug market,” saying “you fish where the fish are.”

“I did not want that anywhere in my district,” he said.

District City Council members have increasingly used overlays, which essentially patch the city’s zoning code to create individualized rules for specific neighborhoods or districts, to pursue hyperlocal policy goals and for political ends.

Given the prerogative tradition, overlays allow district Council members to pursue goals in their territory that they might not be able to win citywide. Critics say these bills create a patchwork of rules across the city that give Council members a way to pursue short-term interests or satisfy specific constituents without winning over a majority of their colleagues.

“The danger of overlays is always that they are an easy work-around,” said Greg Pastore, a former member of the Zoning Board of Adjustment. “They have, in general, very much become a political tool, not a planning tool. The purpose of them is to do whatever you want in your own mini-kingdom.”

Council’s move comes less than two weeks after a bipartisan majority of Pennsylvania senators passed a bill that would ban supervised consumption sites statewide. To become law, that bill would have to pass the state House — which is currently controlled by Democrats — and be signed by Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who opposes the sites.

Supervised consumption sites, or supervised injection sites, are spaces where people can use their own drugs under clinical supervision to prevent overdoses. Using drugs by oneself is a leading risk factor for fatal overdose — most overdose deaths in Philadelphia, for example, occur in private homes.

Such sites do not provide drugs to clients; instead, site staff test drugs, provide sterile needles and other equipment for safer drug use, and monitor clients in case they exhibit overdose symptoms. If they do overdose, site staff will revive them, with either supplemental oxygen or the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone.

Only two sites exist in the United States, both in New York City; staff there say that they have prevented hundreds of potentially fatal overdoses since their opening in 2021. Internationally, supervised drug consumption sites operate in dozens of other countries and have been shown to lower deaths from overdose.

Safehouse, the nonprofit that has spearheaded efforts to open a site in Philadelphia, has been involved in a legal battle over its plans since 2018, when then-U.S. Attorney Bill McSwain sued in federal court to block Safehouse from opening.

A U.S. District Court judge sided with Safehouse, but the nonprofit lost on appeal and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case. The nonprofit went back to U.S. District Court on a different legal argument.

Recently, Safehouse and the federal government have been engaged in settlement talks. Last month, a coalition of neighborhood groups urged a federal judge to hear their concerns before signing off on any agreement between the government and Safehouse.

In a separate court filing, five Democratic state senators also raised misgivings, including state Sen. Christine Tartaglione (D., Phila.), who also introduced the Senate bill banning the facilities.