RUMOR MILL ON OVERTIME IN BRIDGTON HEROIN TALE

BRIDGTON -- Everyone in town, it seems, has heard the story, or at least
some version of it.

From Town Hall to the Creek Eating Place, it's what people are talking
about these days: "Did you hear about the police chief and the heroin bust?"

The whispering has become so wild and widespread that even the town
manager, Ronnie K. Belanger, has had difficulty separating fact from fiction.

"I finally had to call the (Maine Drug Enforcement Agency)," Belanger said
this week. "I needed to know what was going on, to get an outside view of
this thing."

The facts are these: Scott Spearrin, the owner of the popular Morning Glory
Diner in Bridgton, was arrested on the Maine Turnpike in August, charged
with trafficking heroin. There have since been five more heroin arrests in
the Lakes Region.

The fiction, according to the MDEA and the state Attorney General's Office,
is that the Bridgton police, including the town's longtime chief, Robert C.
Bell, knew that Spearrin was peddling heroin and did nothing about the
burgeoning drug trade.

In recent days, the rumor mill has had the 63-year-old Bell detained on
drug charges at the Canadian border; the town's DARE officer dealing
heroin; the ambulance driver ferrying illicit substances around Bridgton.

"This is small-town U.S.A.," said Dan Leland, owner of Adams Bakery on Main
Street. "I guess people need something to talk about."

The stories about the police started, and quickly spread, because the
police chief is a regular at the Morning Glory. For almost 20 years, Bell
has been going to the diner for his morning coffee, and returning later, in
his pale blue cruiser, for lunch.

Since Spearrin's arrest, many in Bridgton, including Belanger and the Board
of Selectmen, have urged the chief to stop going to the diner. They believe
his presence at the Morning Glory gives people the wrong impression.

But Bell, Bridgton's police chief for the past 28 years, has told town
officials that he will not stay away. Nor will he order his eight officers
to avoid the diner on Route 302.

"I was there this morning and I'll be there tomorrow morning," he said.
"I'm a person of habit and I don't change easily."

Spearrin, who is 31, has owned and operated the Morning Glory for five
years. He and his wife, Brenda, are well known in this town of 4,300, and
last year received the Community Spirit Award from the Greater Bridgton
Lakes Region Chamber of Commerce.

"They had opened their restaurant on Thanksgiving to people who otherwise
wouldn't have had a meal," said Barbara Clifford, executive director of the
chamber. "Bridgton is a very small town, and they've tried to be supportive
and do good works."

Spearrin was stopped on the turnpike in Wells on Aug. 14 after state police
received a tip that he would be driving his white Mercedes Benz back from
Lowell, Mass., with 250 bags of heroin.

Trooper Ronald Brooks, who made the arrest, said Spearrin remarked more
than once during the stop that he was on good terms with the Bridgton police.

"He made references to feeding all the cops in Bridgton," said Brooks. "It
was weird. He had kind of a cocky attitude about the whole thing."

Spearrin, who is free on bail, declined to comment, except to say that
"people think this situation is 10 times bigger than it is."

News of the arrest was not immediately published in the Bridgton News. Even
though Spearrin is a prominent business owner in town, Wayne E. Rivet,
editor of the weekly newspaper, said he held the story because authorities
asked him to.

"If it meant investigators had more time to lock up a few more people, I
was willing to do that," Rivet explained.

But only for a while. When people in town began to talk about a drug ring
involving the police, Rivet finally ran a story, on Sept. 7, about
Spearrin's arrest. Rivet did so, he said, to set the record straight.

"I was disgusted with the impression that the police in this town are
corrupt," he said. "Unfortunately, we live in a society where everybody
wants to know everybody else's business.

"In some ways this whole thing has been comical, and in some ways it's been
very sad," Rivet said.

The rumors have prompted inquiries, both formal and informal, by agencies
including the Cumberland County Sheriff's Department, the Maine State
Police, the Maine Drug Enforcement Agency and the Attorney General's Office.

"The truth goes away real quick, but rumors go on forever," said Brian
MacMaster, investigator at the Attorney General's Office. "What we're
hearing out of Bridgton is strictly rumor. There's nothing going on and
we're not investigating."

Despite Bell's claims to the contrary, and the assurances of the MDEA and
the Attorney General's Office, many people in town still believe the chief
knew, or should have known, that Spearrin was involved with drugs. Some are
calling for his resignation.

"At the very least, he shouldn't be spending quite so much time now at that
establishment," said Joanne Knight, owner of the Creek Eating Place. "It
doesn't look good."

For his part, Bell said he's not bothered by people's suspicions. He said
it's nobody's business where he drinks his coffee.

"You can't please everybody," he said. "It's my prerogative to go where I
want, and that's good food at a good price."