I-Team: Dozens of NYC day care centers surrounded by drug trade, investigation reveals

The tri-state was shocked after a toddler died and three others were sickened when they ingested fentanyl inside a Bronx day care last month. 

Prosecutors say the childcare facility was operating as a drug front and they’ve now charged the day care owner, her husband, and their tenant with murder. But poisonous fentanyl doesn’t have to make it inside the walls of a day care in order to do serious damage.

A joint investigation between the NBC New York I-Team and Telemundo 47 Investiga reveals dozens of New York City day care centers are surrounded by the drug trade, causing some operators to treat their facilities more like fortresses to keep kids distanced from persistent street-level fentanyl dealing.

Drugs Near Day Cares

In densely populated NYC, some drug activity is bound to unfold near child care facilities. But some day care centers have seen dozens of NYPD drug arrests within steps of their front doors – in just the first 6 months of 2023.

Map: Nelson Hsu/NBC
Source: NYS Office of Children and Family Services, NYPD Arrests (Year to Date)

“We live in a neighborhood that’s oppressive. It’s killing us,” said Alejandrina Brioso, a mother who lost her son to fentanyl poisoning and now drops her grandson off at a day care center that has seen more than 60 drug arrests within steps of its front door. Brioso says just walking to and from the child care facility can be traumatic – because it often involves sidestepping drug paraphernalia like needles and witnessing drug-addicted people suffering on sidewalks.

“It may happen to my grandkids if I don’t get out of here,” she said.

To plot day care centers operating in close proximity to the drug trade, the I-Team and Telemundo 47 Investiga mapped every NYPD drug arrest in the first half of 2023 - and then overlaid those points with the locations of more than 7,000 day care facilities licensed by New York State. 

On average, day cares had about one drug arrest within 100 meters of its front door, roughly 320 feet – or about the length of a football field. Given the population density of New York City, a single nearby drug arrest in six months isn’t surprising. But more than 80 child care facilities had more than 12 drug arrests near their front door. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, most drug sales now involve deadly fentanyl.

“In 2021, it was four out of 10 pills. In 2022, it was six out of 10 pills. Today, it’s seven out of ten pills. So seven out of every 10 pills that we test in our laboratories across the United States have a lethal dose of fentanyl,” said Frank Tarentino III, the special agent in charge of the DEA’s New York region. “This is the most urgent, most significant threat that the United States has ever seen. Illicit fentanyl is the deadliest drug on the street today.”

In some cases efforts to treat the scourge of addiction has complicated the plight of day cares trying to keep children far away from fentanyl.

In Harlem, the Association to Benefit Children, a day care center supervising up to 61 school-aged kids, has had 71 drug arrests within 100 meters of its front door in the first half of this year. The facility has bulletproof glass on its windows and operates across the street from a clinic where people struggling with drug addiction can safely inject themselves. The operator of the Harlem day care did not respond to a request for comment, but some neighbors said the injection clinic has brought the problems associated with drug addiction too close to the sidewalks that kids use to get to and from the day care.

“When they started this drug thing where they could come in and do whatever they wanted to do to get high, they end up in the street all along here,” said Bernice Watson, a neighbor who has opposed the concentration of drug addiction clinics in Harlem.

Bridget Brennan, the New York City special narcotics prosecutor, said harm reduction centers need to be located somewhere – but when they’re clustered together – they can deteriorate quality of life for residents and businesses in the vicinity.   

“The other thing you’ll hear from communities, and I absolutely agree with is, is that there is an overconcentration of services for people who have substance abuse issues in certain communities,” Brennan said. “And so the drug dealers go to those areas because they know people who have substance abuse issues are coming there. And they will set up there.”

Supporters of harm reduction centers say they can safely coexist with sensitive places like day care centers.  

Rachel Leah Tanzola-Sullivan, a former addict herself who now provides street-level services to people struggling with drugs, said safe injection sites benefit children.

“This isn’t hurting people, it’s helping people and it’s helping our children,” she said. “It’s keeping their parents safe because no child should have to grow up without their parents. No parent should die of an overdose.”