Unmatched coverage
The Springfield News-Sun digs into important public safety stories, including recent coverage of dramatic increases in overdose deaths and a spike in wrong-way fatal crashes.
Authorities in Clark County and across the state are seeking new ways to turn around or close motels that have become magnets for crime, including prostitution and drug use that threaten public safety.
Troubled hotels that become havens for criminal activity can cause local authorities to spend an inordinate amount of time and resources responding to calls and complaints. And cities that try to fight problem owners in court soon discover it can be a lengthy and expensive process.
Clark County Sheriff Gene Kelly has documented more than 100 calls for service so far this year concerning the Drake Motel, 3200 E. National Road in Springfield Twp.
The first week of May proved particularly busy, including calls for drug overdoses, thefts and even a pit bull attack.
“We have had deaths here. We have had robberies. We have had prostitution. We have had fugitives staying at this motel,” Kelly said.
Linda Lauchard works at an auction house across from the Drake on East National Road.
“Definitely it’s not safe for the people out here,” she said.
Kelly’s gone on the offensive, increasing patrols at the motel that sits just across the street from his East District office. Deputies drive by in their marked cars at all hours of the day and night and yet the criminal conduct persists.
He also sat down this week with the owner Harshad “Mike” Patel, who lives in Mansfield.
Patel said he doesn’t condone drug abuse and has removed people from his property when they don’t follow the rules. But he also lamented the struggle he faces keeping unwanted people out while still running a business and complying with anti-discrimination laws.
“We told (the sheriff) very emphatically, ‘We want to work with you,’” Patel said.
Other cities like Columbus have passed new regulations and sued motel owners.
“We have focused on hotels where ownership and management are acquiescing to the criminal element,” Columbus Assistant City Attorney Bill Sperlazza said. “We have also seen some hotel managers and owners who are involved in the criminal activity. Those are really the people we are going after.”
Prostitution moves in
Although drug use, thefts, disorderly conduct and other issues can and do occur at many hotels, local law enforcement from Clark County and Columbus say the increased use of the Internet for sex trafficking is one of the biggest reasons establishments like the Drake have seen more problems.
Prostitution used to be a business of the streets, Kelly said. In Springfield, West Main Street was notoriously the stomping ground of prostitutes and customers. Now they’re nearly gone.
Sites like Backpage.com have become an electronic marketplace for sex, Kelly said. With the help of a web site, he said arrangements for meetings can be easily made.
“They tell you to come to this motel, room 19 and knock twice, or whatever … and they move around,” Kelly said.
Individuals will set up in local hotels for a day or up to a month, according to Cheryl Oliver, executive director of Oasis House, a faith-based organization trying to help women get out of prostitution.
Drug abuse has become rampant in prostitution, especially heroin, which brings the drug trade to those same hotels.
“Ninety-eight percent of the women we see on a regular basis here at Oasis House have or have had a heroin problem. In the last five years we have seen a transition from crack cocaine to heroin,” Oliver said.
Those fighting drug and human trafficking say in many cases hotel managers are well aware that prostitutes and drug dealers are working out of their rooms.
“Step one to a hotel beginning to go down this path is management beginning to acquiesce to the criminal element,” Sperlazza said. “When they see folks who are clearly in the business of drug dealing and prostitution come to their front desk and offer them cash for a room, and they turn the other cheek, they take the money, they allow those folks into their room to do business. That’s the beginning to the downfall of a hotel.”
Cities fighting back
Columbus hopes it can make a difference by getting the message out that managers and owners who allow continued criminal activity will lose a lot more than the $30 in cash a drug dealer is paying for a room.
That city is in the midst of a crackdown on about a dozen properties along Interstate 71 on its north side, where prostitution activity has led to drug sales and gun violence. Bullet holes could be seen recently in the windows of one shuttered motel.
Their effort began with civil action against the properties, managers and owners under nuisance abatement laws, Sperlazza said. That allowed for temporary restraining orders to shutter the businesses while the civil action is pending.
But the city council went a step further at the end of 2015, passing an ordinance requiring hotels to obtain a license.
“It allows for the city to object to a permit, and perhaps remove the permit, if evidence is shown of a pattern of criminal activity occurring at the hotel or of fire code violations,” Sperlazza said.
The result is multiple properties remain closed while legal action is underway. Each case takes an average of 18 months in civil court, Sperlazza said, and requires a major commitment from the city.
Their goal isn’t only to protect neighbors who live and work near the hotels, but also travelers who get off the expressway late at night in search of a safe respite from the road.
“We know that people see these and say, ‘Let’s stop here for the night.’ We know that there are folks on internet services getting these hotels blindly. Or they’re saying, ‘That’s a brand name hotel, let’s stay here,’” Sperlazza said. “They don’t know they’re sleeping a wall away from a prostitute, a wall away from a pimp, a wall away from a drug dealer or drug user.”
It’s made a difference, a neighbor who lives nearby said.
“It’s a spectacular idea,” Gabriel Dean said.
Some hotels in Springfield have had similar incidents to those at the Drake.
According to Springfield Police Division data, the three motels with the highest volume of calls for service in the past five years are also along the U.S. 40 corridor through town — the Townhouse Motor Lodge (597 calls since 2011), the Executive Inn (391 calls) and the Fairfax Inn (320 calls).
The most common type of call to those locations is disorderly conduct, but overdose deaths, assaults and arrests for drug trafficking have also occurred.
Pete Patel owns the Fairfax and said he has no tolerance for criminal activity.
“Once they make a mistake, we don’t rent them a room,” he said. They have more than 300 individuals on their “do not rent” list.
The owners of the Executive Inn couldn’t be reached and a manager at the Townhouse declined to comment.
The Quality Inn on East Leffel Lane had the fifth highest calls for service in the area in 2015, but manager John King said most of those calls are initiated by the hotel staff members requesting police to remove a disorderly guest or trespassers.
They’ve banned people who have damaged rooms, King said, but haven’t had issues with prostitution or drugs.
Patrols are often directed to certain motels as part of prostitution or drug investigations or as a result of neighbor complaints, Springfield Police Chief Stephen Moody said, but the volume of calls to any of these establishments isn’t unusual for large public places.
Police respond to hundreds of calls each year at the Walmart on Bechtle Avenue, for example, he pointed out.
The Springfield hotel owners have generally been good about keeping open and honest communication with the police department, he said.
The city hasn’t discussed any legal measures like the ones used in Columbus, Mayor Warren Copeland said.
“If the police were interested in that, we’d certainly take a look,” he said.
Alternate solutions
Local licensing might help cities, Kelly said, but it’s off-limits to counties and townships, which don’t have the powers to pass similar laws.
That isn’t stopping the sheriff from going on the offensive against places like the Drake.
“This one location has been the source of so many problems that we have to do something,” Kelly said. “We are going to send a loud and clear message to this owner and to anyone who wants to come here.”
Kelly plans to increase patrols including going through the parking lot with the department’s license plate reader, a practice that has turned up stolen vehicles in the past.
But he also hopes his meeting with Mike Patel will begin, “a new spirit of cooperation.”
Mike Patel, who said he is a former economics instructor at Ohio State University, argues that laws on privacy and discrimination don’t allow motel operators to turn down customers in advance solely on the suspicion that they may rent a room for illegal activity.
“How can you accuse the innkeeper? If he is involved or connected, then bring a lawsuit and sue him. If you cannot do that then you have no business to blame the innkeeper because the innkeeper is not aware because of law of privacy,” Mike Patel said.
Neighbors and customers haven’t complained to him previously, Mike Patel said.
If problems persist, Kelly said he wouldn’t be opposed to using nuisance abatement laws to go after the motel.
But in his conversation with Kelly, though, Mike Patel expressed a wish to work together with the township and sheriff’s office.
“We talked about moving forward and working with us to stop the constant criminal conduct,” Kelly said.
About the Author