SECTION 1. Chapter 40A of the General Laws, as appearing in the 2014 Official Edition, is hereby amended by adding, after Section 3, the following new section:-

Section 3 ½. (a) Notwithstanding the provisions of Section 3 of Chapter 40A, or any general or special law to the contrary, municipalities may adopt zoning ordinances, pursuant to Section 5 of Chapter 40A, for the purpose of regulating the location of proposed methadone clinics.

(b) Should no local requirements exist, a methadone clinic, by default, shall not be sited within a radius of five hundred feet of a school, daycare center, or any facility in which children commonly congregate. The five hundred foot distance under this section shall be measured in a straight line from the nearest point of the facility in question to the nearest point of the proposed methadone clinic.

(c) For the purposes of this section, “facility in which children commonly congregate” shall be defined as facilities in which children are gathered for a particular purpose in a structured and scheduled manner or which are dedicated to the use of children, including playgrounds, youth services programs, day care centers, youth sports facilities, dance schools, and gymnastic schools and private homes housing family day care centers. It shall not include other facilities where children congregate in an unstructured, unscheduled manner.

(d) Methadone clinics shall not be able to employ the provisions of Section 3 of Chapter 40A in order to bypass local zoning requirements.

SECTION 2. This act shall take effect 90 days after passage.