Property owners in Maine are about to face hefty fines for owning vacant properties as city officials attempt to hard restart the drug-ridden downtown area.
Portland City Council voted 5-3 to pass an ordinance that will fine commercial property owners whose buildings stay vacant for more than 30 days.
'The goal here is to make it a livable and vibrant place, not to hurt or bring down or burden any business in any way or any property owner,' City Councilor, Sarah Michniewicz, said, according to Fox 23 Maine.
The ordinance, which will go into effect in January, is meant to help decrease drug use in the decrepit area by filling up the abandoned spaces.
Owners with ground-level spaces have been given a three-month deadline to find an occupant for the retail space.
If not, they'll be fined $250. If a year passes, they will be fined $1,000.
The penalty maxes out at $7,500, according to Fox 23 Maine.
A loophole to the new rule is to allow city-owned art to be displayed in the window.
However, Mayor Mark Dion doesn't believe the new ordinance's loophole will fix anything. 'If we refurbish a storefront and someone is passed out on the sidewalk with a needle in their arm, I don't know what we have accomplished,' he said.
Portland resident, Bev Uhlenhake, agreed with the mayor, saying: 'I don't know a commercial real estate owner that doesn't want their space filled.
'They're not not filling their spaces because they don't want to, it's because they can't, and we need to fix the problem.'
The city is preparing a list of empty properties that will be made public in hopes of helping to fill the spaces.
The Portland Maine Police Department announced in April that they had noticed an uptick in drug overdoses.
There was almost 130 overdoses, six of them fatal, between January and mid-April.
Owners with ground-level spaces have been given a three-month deadline to find an occupant for the retail space. If not, they'll be fined $250. If a year passes, they will be fined $1,000
The penalty maxes out at $7,500. A loophole to the new rule is to allow city-owned art to be displayed in the window
Maine is one of the top states for drug abuse, ranking eighth in 2024 with 47.1 fatal overdoses per 100,000 people
A total of 45 overdoses between July 28 and August 31, according to police data
It begged residents to make themselves familiar with Narcan, a drug that can reverse the effects of opioids.
Between August 25 and 31, 11 overdoses occurred in the city, according to police data. No drug fatalities were reported.
The week before, there was nine overdoses, and a total of 45 overdoses between July 28 and August 31.
There was more than 8,500 overdoses in the State of Maine in 2024. As of May 2025, there has been more than 3,000 in the state this year, according to Maine Drug Data.
Maine is one of the top states for drug abuse, ranking eighth in 2024 with 47.1 fatal overdoses per 100,000 people.
West Virginia ranked number one, with 90.9 overdoses per 100,000, followed by Tennessee, Louisiana, and Kentucky, the CDC found.