New York State has many rules about substance abuse facilities and the services they provide. They also have rules about the physical setup of the facilities that address the issue of “hanging out” before treatment.
In this document:
https://www.health.ny.gov/facilities/public_health_and_health_planning_council/meetings/2014-09-18/docs/integrated_services.pdf
in the section: § 404.10 Environment, providers are supposed to provide:
(ii) An adequately furnished waiting area shall be available to those waitingfor services and shall be supervised to control access to the facility. There should be sufficient separation and supervision of various treatment groups (e.g.children) to ensure safety
We need volunteers to work on this issue. If you’d be willing to write/email/call the Commissioner of Health (Howard Zucker, M.D. https://www.health.ny.gov/contact/ ) regarding:
Section 2803 of the Public Health Law, the Official Compilation of Title 10 of the Codes, Rules and Regulations of the State of New York (“NYCRR”), Part 404
and any program/clinic you know of that doesn’t have a waiting area (but is using the sidewalk as their waiting area), we’d really appreciate it.