The city’s drug-user supply vending machine is so popular, workers have to refill it twice a week — with some neighbors embracing it and others saying it causes trouble like users “laid out in front of it.”
Nearly four months after the introduction of the free machine — which offers everything from crack pipes to Narcan to condoms — drug users are still flocking to it to snap up supplies in Brooklyn, residents said.
“[It] goes very fast,” the super of a building near the machine in Brownsville told The Post. “They take what they want and leave.”
Some neighbors have accepted the contraption — which also spits out fentanyl test strips — as a necessary evil that helps save lives.
“That machine ain’t bothering no one,” said one neighbor, who declined to give his name.
“People use it a lot. They don’t gather around and stay there. You may see four or five people but they get what they want and leave,” he said.
But other nearby residents said the contraption, which also dispenses so-called “meth kits” and “snorting kits,” have attracted folks who make them feel unsafe.
“Of course, it’s a problem. A few weeks ago there was a man laid out in front of it,” said one woman, who lives across the street from the machine.
“We never had that before,” she said. “We don’t want it there. That machine is a mess…I don’t feel safe. It needs to go.”
Workers at nearby businesses, including an auto shop and a deli, said there’s simply a demand for it in the neighborhood.
“It’s needed because of what’s inside — the paraphernalia, hygiene stuff,” owner of Color Match Auto Paint Supply said.
“I see people using it all the time, that’s why I say it’s a good spot to have it,” he said of the machine’s location at Broadway and Decatur Street.
The machine was installed in the drug-riddled neighborhood in early June and is the first of four set to launch in the area.
It features drug-smoking kits complete with pipes, mouthpieces and lip balm, along with various items such as nicotine gum and tampons.
The machine likely saved at least one life in mid-June when a worker used Narcan to resuscitate an opioid user who had overdosed, Curbed.com reported in July.
The machine is connected to a computer system that sends out alert when supplies get low, prompting workers to restock it, the building super said, adding the workers come roughly twice a week.
