Clinic's problems painfully obvious, neighbors say

TAMPA - Martin Luther King Boulevard in Tampa runs past a hospital and numerous clinics and doctors offices, but there's apparently something special about the new clinic at 2137 MLK.

The parking lot is packed nearly every day. A sign on the front door says, “Please do not hang around the front!”

The clinic’s entrance is in the back near a picnic table. Patients sit, wait, smoke and have a bite to eat. Some men take off their shirts and take in the sun.

There's even a semi trailer in the parking lot where patients can get an MRI. Attorney Pete Scaglione works next door and remembers the day in March when he first noticed the new clinic.

“We were standing outside with one of the other attorneys talking about a case,” Scaglione recalled, “and suddenly about 12 cars pulled into the lot all from out of state. I thought, being a car enthusiast, that it was a car rally.”

The cars have plates from Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee, Illinois, Pennsylvania, but most patients seem to be coming to Tampa from Ohio and Kentucky. There’s no name anywhere on the clinic which keeps unusual hours according to neighbors.

“At the crack of dawn, they're there lined up to get into this place,” said Ryan Cragun, who lives on the street behind the new clinic. “And they're there until two o'clock in the morning. That's not any doctor's office I've seen.”

Cragun says neighbors are upset by the noise, traffic and trash.

“I've never seen a doctor's office where patients are waiting outside drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes at nine o'clock at night,” he told investigative reporter Doug Smith.

Smith tried to talk with some of the people in clinic’s parking lot.

“I just brought some friends here for their appointment,” a man told him.

“And what are they here for?” Smith asked.

“Pain management,” said the man, who didn’t want to give his name.

Florida’s Department of Health told FOX 13, it has no records for a pain management clinic at 2137 MLK in Tampa, even though a new state law requires all pain management clinics to register, pay a fee and submit to an inspection.

While Smith was speaking with people in the parking lot, another man approached him and asked him to leave the property. That man refused to identify himself, provide the name of the clinic or answer any questions about who runs it or what services it provides.

“It looks like an invasion from the outside world,” said City Councilman Charlie Miranda, who represents Tampa’s 6th District, where the clinic is located. “They're from everywhere.”

Miranda says he’s spoken with neighbors and with Tampa Police Chief Jane Castor about the “painfully obvious” problems with the clinic. Ryan Cragun hopes the situation will change soon.

“We want them out,” said Cragun. “We don't want it here.”

The Hillsborough County Commission is considering a plan to temporarily block any new pain clinics from opening until tougher state laws take effect. Pinellas County approved a similar moratorium last week.