Originally posted at 3:09 p.m.
At noon tomorrow, city workers may cut the power at five Seattle motels along Aurora Avenue North, leaving dozens of residents in the dark.
Outreach workers, accompanied by Seattle police, visited the motels today—including the Seattle Motor Inn (formerly the Black Angus Inn), Fremont Inn, Wallingford Inn, Isabella Motel, and Italia Motel—and told long-term guests that unless the motel owners make payment on thousands of dollars in back taxes and utility bills by 5 p.m. today, the city would cut the power.
According to Mayor Greg Nickels’s spokesman Alex Fryer, the city has filed 152 charges for tax violations against the motel owners and is seeking to revoke their business license after four years of discussions. Fryer was not able to provide a figure on the taxes owed.
The City Attorney’s Office has also filed a criminal charge against the manager of the Seattle Motor Inn for failing to comply with city laws requiring motels to copy guests’ IDs.
Fryer says the city also believes the motels are “public safety concerns” due to drug activity, prostitution, and other violent incidents at the properties.
According to a press release sent by Fryer late this afternoon, the five motels are “frequent crime scenes” and the scene of 32 arrests and source of 460 calls to 911 in 2008. According to the release, police officers “routinely confiscate drugs…in the motel rooms and former motel employees have reported widespread drug use.” Fryer also says staff at the Isabella Motel also posted signs in the office windows, “warning residents to not cooperate with the police or City Attorney’s Office.”
Fryer did not have an estimate on how many tenants might be affected by the city’s plan, but says outreach workers have offered housing vouchers to long-term tenants at the five motels. The city’s Department of Planning and Development would need to get a court order to evict tenants at the motels.
A representative for the property owner, Limantzakis Properties, was not immediately available for comment. Calls to the motels did not go though—no ring, no nothing—suggesting that phones lines at the motels may have already been disconnected.
Yeah, well, what they do there is often better in the dark.
This is EXCELLENT NEWS. These motels, owned by absentee landlords Dean and Jill Inman of Bothell, have long been hubs for drug dealing and prostitution, which occur out in the open in the residential neighborhoods surrounding the motels. The crime that these motel owners/managers turn a blind eye to results in property damage to nearby businesses and homes, trash and vandalism on public and private property, and loud disturbances nearly every night. I have personally removed pimps, whores, drug dealers, and drug addicts from my nearby property (not to mention the crap they leave behind) more times than I care to recall, only to watch them retreat to one of these motels.
As a homeowner in the neighborhood where several of these motels are located, I could not be happier to hear this news. I certainly wish all of the law-abiding residents of these motels the very best; but they too — along with neighborhood residents — are victims of the owners’ irresponsible behavior.
Thank you to all the vigilant neighborhood watch participants in upper Fremont, SPD officers, and other city workers involved in this operation. Over the years, the police have responded to countless incidents as a result of activity at these motels, and their continued work is deeply appreciated.
good riddance.
I am hoping that this will improve the safety around the motels. I work in the area and rely on bus transportation, and it makes me nervous to be around it, especially at night. I’m concerned that this may not completely solve the problem though.
So… after they cut the power, are they going to do anything else? Lack of power has never deterred squatter junkies.
@4 i am in the same situation. i have been physically assaulted twice, waiting and riding the 358, since my office moved to 82nd and stone in february. everyday i deal with the fear of it happening again. a large amount of the people who ride the bus are on their way past the motels to “the clinic” or they go up north because of malt liquor sales. indeed these individuals are sick and i have the deepest sympathy for the pain they endure as a result of their addictions, but i feel at risk for future attacks. what can be done about this?
How. The. Fuck. Is. That. Cheaper. Than. Renting?
@7,
It’s not cheaper, but many of those people can’t save up enough for first/last/security, and it’s highly unlikely that real landlords would put up with their bullshit for long (or rent to them in the first place).
But where will the sex workers work?
Better to light a candle and set a fire than curse in the dark because it went in the wrong place …
Can we add The Seals to that list? Probably the number one destination for corpse removals mostly overdoses or suicide by cop of any Seattle Motel. A Real Shithole in my opinion. When they go into clean up the rooms they bring 5 gallon sharps containers to pick up all the needles. The owners just up the rent if your ‘partying’ and look the other way.
@10 And can we add the Green Lake Motel to that as well?
As I’ve said many times before, all the city needs to do is buy a big tract of land in Eastern WA, fence it in, provide free, one way bus passes there, then provide unlimited sparks, king cobra, other high test malt liquor, heroin, meth, whatever to the people who go to this area.
These shit bags have zero desire to better themselves or to do anything other than leach off of society, so just let them do what they want to do in area where they can be contained.
I say bulldoze these no tell motels and build condos.
Good luck with that. Aurora is the way it is because it’s a highway in the middle of a city. I say put it on a massive road diet, and add a streetcar and bike lanes. Then you’ll see condos.
@14 – oh, just zone the block next to Aurora for 40-100 story tall inexpensive residential rental apartment buildings and build a frickin monorail near it and we’ll call it even.
I like the idea of turning Aurora into bike lanes and Street Cars. I am not big on Condos but suggest them over these crackhead motels.
Wow. The outright hatred towards everyone living in these motels is uncalled for. I have been working with FAMILIES that live in some of the motels and have seen that the motels, as much as we don’t want to admit, are important to the city because they are a type of transitional housing. Some folks just cannot fit into the shelter system because they do have a job or a family that they want to stay with, they are on a waiting list for housing or they are running away from domestic violence so, they go to a motel on Aurora and stay there. By all means, I am not tuning a blind eye to the crime that goes on, I just think that it is a shame that everyone is celebrating over the fact that there will be some children who will be without power at the motels tonight. There are indeed folks who live there that are trying desperately to get on their feet again.
There is a giant unfinished condo that is still sitting on Aurora near Green Lake…more condos is not the answer.
@17 – hatred towards people living in the hotels? I think our problem is with the rampant crime (and the people who commit these crimes) in these hotels and the effect it has on our neighbourhoods. I’m sorry if innocent people are affected, but the innocents appear to be the minority in this situation.
If I hadn’t paid my taxes in years, and had neighbors complaining incessantly about crack heads and prostitutes coming and going, I think I’d have been arrested by now.
In the extreme minority. These are almost entirely crackhead havens. But hey, I would much rather they bull doze the roach motels put in street cars and bike lanes and housing, including housing for “Families” on limited incomes. Oh, and while we are at it can we please get rid of the 1970’s drunk mobile RVs?
UPDATE: Apparently the city won’t be turning off the lights to the motels:
http://is.gd/2yHio
I live a few blocks from them. Turning off the power only puts them on the streets and roaming my neighborhood at night.
Great.
God needs to take out the trash more often.
Also, nice work, Stranger. I was outside my place at 5pm when all the press showed up. You guys had this story a good 3 hours before anybody else.
I’m confused, are these owned by Limantzakis or by this couple in Bothell in the first comment?
@6: Sorry that you were assaulted. You ask what can be done to protect against future attacks. I suggest pepper spray is a good start. The trick is to spray them (in the eyes) before they’re close enough to get hold of you, and then… run! Of course call the police and tell them, but not before you’ve moved out.
Truth is, you can’t control other people. But you are in charge of you. So you have to take responsibility for your own well being. Don’t leave your safety in the hands of the junkies, drug dealers, pimps and other miscreants.
@17: If there truly are honest working families with children living at these places, I haven’t seen them. I live across the street. Not saying they’re not there, and maybe it makes sense that they’d keep a low profile, what with all the drug dealing, prostitution, theft, assault, and burglary going on. All I see is a steady stream of lowlifes walking down the block in front of my house, either buying or selling drugs or sex.
I’d rather see them knocked down and left vacant than what we have there now. These places are an affliction on the neighborhood. Any innocent, well-meaning people who lose their home as a result can be added to the long list of victims of the severely negligent mismanagement of these motels by their owners, the Inmans. The Inmans and their agents have been victimizing our neighborhood for years now, so I know how those innocent folks would feel.
Damn. If a guy wants to smoke crack with toothless whore, where’s he supposed to go now?
@26 – Capitol Hill.
(you didn’t specify “her” gender)
What’s this about the city “requiring motels to copy guests’ IDs”? The article to which you linked does not contain the word “copy” but says “Under city law, hotel and motel guests are required to show government ID at check-in.”
What law is that, and why does it exist?
#17 & 25–there used to be many more families in these motels, families that need a decent place to stay and just can’t afford first/last/deposit, families that have no credit history (e.g., escaping domestic violence), families that just need a new base from which to start. The Inmans promised to provide it when they bought in–they did just the opposite. As a neighbor, I’ve watched the families disappear as the crime increased.
I understand that it’s the owners that are at fault here, but why do the tenants deserve to be punished? Granted, those motels and hotels don’t usually house the most savory of folks, but like 17 said, a lot of the people in those places are on company vouchers, trying to get their feet back under them.
Also, regardless if there aren’t any families on vouchers in any one of those places, if the tenants are paying, not adding to the crime issues, and not trashing the place, for what reason should they be punished for the owner’s delinquencies? Just because they are living in so-called slum motels, at what point did we reach the capacity to judge people based on them having to live in places like these?
Out of the 460 police calls how many came from the motels themselves asking the police to help rid them of a problem. Showing a valid ID and having cash for a room is great but they are not allowed to search the guest belongings. So why so few arrest for the number of calls. These motels get penalized if they make to many 911 calls by the city, guess that would really make them want to pick up the phone and call. It seems that if the police have gone there 460 times and so much illegal activity is going on they should have a paddy wagon full after each visit. Maybe they are having a hard time getting rid of the scumbags too….. so why not point the finger at someone else. After all there is alot of political peacocking going on!
I would also like to see the number of police calls to the other area motels on the top ten list. Lets see how many rooms they have and figure out an % of calls by occupancy. The Seals motel has the right idea, just let them overdose and die it gets them off the street faster than the police!I think we will find the city has decided to make a statement by going after this poor bothell couple because they own more than one or two properties. Again this is all for the political statement city officials are trying to make. Nickels is a day late and a dollar short. He should have thought about this before the prelims.