Southern Maine Editor Decries Public Drug Dealing Along Sidewalk Near School

The editor of a Biddeford news outlet has run an open letter to the community disclosing his possessing multiple videos of street dealing.

But Joshua Wolfe said he’s reluctant to publish the evidence because the photographers “fear retaliation, both physically and emotionally.”

The videos, along with some still shots, show drug use along the street in front of a drop-in site called Seeds of Hope Neighborhood Center.

Wolfe, who runs the widely followed Biddeford Buzz, said his sources fear potential backlash “from individuals affiliated with or utilizing services” at the community center.

“I find it really frustrating that individuals in the community are feeling intimidated to share illegal activity with the rest of the community, due to fear of retaliation,” he wrote in his post.

News of open drug dealing in York County’s poverty-stricken mill city comes in the wake of a remarkably ignorant column two former Democrat mayors recently published in the Portland Press Herald.

Alan Casavant and Martin Grohman, the second of whom lost re-election in November, claimed in the column that their administrations together rid the city of “urban decay.”

Not if you’ve seen what Wolfe has.

He says street dealers and users are playing out their unlawful addictions within 500 feet of St. James School

“I think it is absolutely awful that residents are put in a position between feeling threatened to speak out versus possible guilt that a child may step on a needle and overdose, which could have potentially been avoided if the resident felt safe to warn others in the community,” Wolfe said.