Business owner slams ‘crazy’ rumoured location for CBD injecting room

The owner of a business located near the rumoured site proposed for Melbourne’s second injecting room has slammed the “crazy” plan.

The Herald Sun reports the facility, which was originally flagged for near the Queen Victoria Market, appears set to open on Flinders Street, south of Swanston Street.

The site is near Crown casino and the Melbourne Aquarium.

Owner of Doherty’s Gym, located in the Banana Alley vaults on Flinders Street, Tony Doherty, says the plan makes no sense.

“It’s a crazy move,” he told Ross and Russel.

“Obviously the city has had an enormous downturn … there’s empty shops everywhere.

“If we’re trying to attract tourists to Melbourne and bring some life back to the city, I don’t think an injecting clinic and the drug dealers that it will attract is probably the best move.”

Mr Doherty says the state government should spend money on temporary crisis housing for the homeless in the city, rather than setting up another injecting room.

“As it is, where Elizabeth Street and Flinders Street meet, it’s disgusting. You can’t even walk there because it smells so bad from urine … people are scared to go there,’ he said.

“What they should be doing is using that money that they’re going to use to setup an injecting room to provide some more short-term crisis housing or something for all the homeless people that congregate there.”

Press PLAY below to hear more on why Mr Doherty says the injecting room proposal is a bad idea

Neil Mitchell debates injecting room advocate over controversial CBD proposal