The City of Long Beach has researched six properties as part of a pilot study on nuisance motels. The Long Beach Police Department offered statistics over a period of about three-and-a-half years to illustrate the number of calls for service and crime incidents on each property.
On Tuesday, Feb. 20, the council voted in favor of asking the city manager’s office to study the feasibility of creating an ordinance that would “hold property owners accountable for nuisance and criminal-related activities.” They also voted in favor of another recommendation to explore the feasibility of reducing the over-concentration of these nuisance motels along certain corridors.
Vice Mayor Rex Richardson, who represents the 9th district, asked his fellow council members to support the proposal. He named one problem corridor— a half-mile stretch along Long Beach Boulevard that falls near the 710 Freeway and Artesia Boulevard.
Richardson explained the problem of nuisance motels in north Long Beach and other neighborhoods, describing that these properties attract blight and crime.
“In many cases, human trafficking, drug activity and violent crime [have] really taken root in these motels,” the vice mayor said. “In fact, in the past three years, our police department has gotten 3,189 calls for service for violent crime and filed 772 crime-incident reports on the six worst motels alone.”
The vice mayor recalled one particular incident at the Luxury Inn on Long Beach Boulevard that highlighted the need to take a more proactive stance to address nuisance properties.
Last April, a “tragic incident” at the motel prompted Long Beach police to evacuate area residents from Coolidge Triangle from their homes while officers searched for a gunman.
Richardson did not detail what happened at the Luxury Inn, however, he did note that 80 police personnel were called to one motel. The vice mayor said that the occurrence prompted the City to initiate a pilot study, which used police data for about three-and-a-half years to determine the six motel properties that were the most problematic.
The six properties under the pilot study are the Luxury Inn, Searle Motel, Colonial Pool & Spa Motel, Long Beach Convention Center Travelodge, Greenleaf Hotel and the Stallion Inn Motel. The pilot study is slated to end in September.
These motels were not only located in Richardson’s district in north Long Beach. They also fell in the 2nd and 6th Districts, which are located in the downtown area and central Long Beach.
Tracy Colunga, director for the City’s Innovation Team, told the council Tuesday that the study involved a collaborative effort between her team and several departments. The report reviewed crime statistics and police-call data for each of the motels. The group evaluated each motel, with consideration to the size of the property, type of crime and scale of criminal activity.
Colunga described to the council how the pilot program for the six properties initiated a partnership between several different stakeholders.
“Site visits to pilot locations are focused on inter-departmental collaboration, community support and partnerships with motel owners and managers,” Colunga said. “This model balances enforcement with support to motel managers provided by city staff. The City must look to other solutions with minimal fiscal impact to address nuisance motels.”
Richardson’s staff report further explains how a partnership could work with motel owners. The vice mayor explained that he would like to tackle the nuisance motels using both short- and long-term solutions. Richardson described how nuisance abatement that focuses on environmental issues and building safety could be used as a short-term solution, but he also noted that the City could “incorporate zoning and land-use changes” and offer incentives to property owners “to convert their properties to more viable uses, such as mixed-income and mixed-use housing.”
He also recommended developing an ordinance that would reduce the number of motels along designated “high-crime” corridors.
The proposal to explore the possibility of developing an ordinance did win the support from the community. Anna M. Soto, a 9th-district resident who also works as a human-trafficking coordinator for the County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health, wrote a letter to the council to voice her concern over the problem of nuisance motels.
“These specific motels,” she wrote, “have become a hub of illegal activity over the years, causing much blight and crime in the surrounding areas, most notably, human trafficking.” Soto also has a vested interest in the problem of human trafficking in Long Beach.
“I am a member of the Long Beach Human Trafficking Task Force and see the devastation human trafficking is wreaking in our communities, morally, financially and emotionally,” she wrote.
A couple of motel owners, however, expressed their frustration at Tuesday’s council meeting and asked for a 30-day extension to allow them to provide input and review the staff reports.
“Human trafficking is horrible, and I certainly don’t allow that on any of our properties,” one motel owner told the council during the public-comment period. He added that his staff workers are trained to handle those kinds of issues and voiced his desire to work with the city staff. He challenged the need to develop another ordinance and asked whether the city’s existing laws could already be used to address nuisance properties.
Mayor Robert Garcia threw his full support behind Richardson’s recommendation and challenged the motel owners with the data that had been provided in the pilot study.
“I think that when data is presented by the police department, those are facts,” Garcia said. “And I think that we have to look at data and understand that the data is telling us something. When calls are being made, it is the responsibility of the property owner [!] to ensure that those issues are being mitigated.”
The action taken by the council Tuesday is only a recommendation for the city manager’s office to explore the possibility of an ordinance, and the staff said Tuesday that they would initiate dialogue with motel owners.
Several other residents from the community voiced their support for the vice mayor’s proposal during the public-comment period. A few shared their experiences in their neighborhood, voicing fear and discomfort over the presence of pimps and their prostitutes.
Richardson concluded that the problem of human trafficking can be addressed.
“We can’t fix human trafficking forever and everywhere in this short term, but we can fix Long Beach Boulevard,” Richardson concluded. “We know where they’re rooted, and the data justifies this.”
