As disorder surged, why didn’t Tacoma crack down on South Hosmer Street motels?

While Tacoma has a history of cracking down on high-crime properties, the city took a far less forceful approach in dealing with the most troubled motels on South Hosmer Street that proved in recent years to be hotbeds of violence, drugs and other illicit behaviors.

Instead of pressing the businesses to take action to address mounting issues or face potentially severe penalties, city and law enforcement officials adopted a collaborative stance that allowed property owners and motel managers to try in good faith to mitigate repeat problems.

The strategy did not appear to pay off.

Police calls increased by more than 24 percent collectively at a dozen lodging establishments on the historically underserved corridor between 2018 and 2021, a News Tribune analysis found, as the South End street descended into a crisis that was punctuated this year by five homicides connected to a motel or hotel.

A number of motels have ceased operations in the past 18 months after being sold to affordable housing developers.

There were several factors in deciding to avoid using formal enforcement tactics against the crime-gripped properties, city and police officials said.

Tacoma Police Department Lt. Jeff Katz said he believed that recurring problems at motels were largely not the fault of the operators, who he added have been receptive to enacting measures they can control, such as installing fencing, improving lighting and logging no-trespassing lists.

City and police officials expressed concern for renters caught in the fray, many of whom were a step from homelessness. It was one reason why Katz said that while officials mulled using the city’s chronic nuisance code on a handful of South Hosmer Street motels, they never considered shutting them down.

Once declared a chronic nuisance, a business must abide by a city-drafted correction agreement to fix issues in a certain amount of time or potentially face consequences that include fines, license cancellation and criminal charges. The code has been used infrequently since its inception in 2003 and less so after it was overhauled in 2018.

Even if the city had determined it was appropriate to take a punitive route, Katz said, the code did not offer a remedy to the criminality and complex issues long plaguing that part of Tacoma.

“We’ve been looking for solutions for the Hosmer corridor for years,” said Katz, who in April became the community policing division commander for the area after working in investigations.

An expert on problem-oriented policing told The News Tribune that collaborating with operators of problem businesses can sometimes backfire.

“There is a temptation to try to go at it from this collaborative, cooperative, gentleman’s agreement kind of approach,” said Michael S. Scott, the director for Arizona State University’s Center for Problem-Oriented Policing. “But what I always warn the city is that you’re setting yourself up for the possibility of failure — but a long, drawn-out failure.”

In interviews this summer, people who work in or run lodging establishments on the five-lane commercial corridor insisted there was little more their businesses could try to curtail problems that were rampant on the street itself, and they criticized the city and short-staffed police department for not doing enough to help.

“There’s this sense that, ‘is (city) council paying attention? Does council care?’” city spokesperson Maria Lee told The News Tribune in November. “But I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that they do. They care very deeply about these issues across the city and they are action-oriented.”

Katz said that the city and police have made progress combating crime and other unwanted activities through various tools: traditional law enforcement work such as arrests and investigations; improved internal collaboration; community engagement; and contracts with service providers and outreach to the considerable number of people experiencing homelessness and living in encampments along the street.

Earlier this year, Tacoma police partnered with federal authorities in an operation that resulted in charges in September against a purported gang member dealing drugs out of the shuttered Econo Lodge. There also has been a recent and significant increase in law enforcement presence on the corridor as part of a data-driven crime reduction plan targeting certain blocks in high-crime areas across the city.

Police ‘anxious’ for a sale

Between public safety calls and proactive police patrols, the street continues to consume a significant amount of law enforcement resources.

In April, city firefighters dispatched to assist an unresponsive patient at HomeTowne Studios encountered a large, threatening crowd, including at least one person with a gun, prompting nearly 40 law enforcement units in the county to respond.

The next month, citing an “exceptional risk” to safety, the Tacoma Fire Department notified city officials that it would refuse responding to calls at five motel sites without police backup, including HomeTowne Studios, the Econo Lodge, Howard Johnson and two others, according to internal city emails obtained by The News Tribune in a public records request.

The three aforementioned motels accounted for the bulk of police calls to lodging establishments on the corridor from 2018 to 2021, The News Tribune previously reported. Four of seven homicides recorded at motels or hotels on the street since 2020 occurred at the Econo Lodge, including one after it sold to an affordable housing developer and ceased operations in March.

In the wake of the Econo Lodge’s closure, HomeTowne Studios across the street has seen its call volume grow significantly this year.

While calls for service at both motel locations have declined in recent months, HomeTowne Studio’s 589 calls through Nov. 17 were the most of any motel or hotel on the corridor in at least five years, call data shows.

That figure excludes a significant number of calls that were what Katz described as non-traditional police work.

Since July, there have been 763 so-called problem-oriented policing calls at HomeTowne Studios and 1,141 at the Econo Lodge through Nov. 17, call logs show. From 2018 to 2021, the two motels combined for five such calls.

Under Police Chief Avery Moore’s crime reduction plan, in its current first phase, officers stage their patrol vehicles for 15-minute increments in violent areas at peak times. The plan rolled out as a pilot in March before beginning in earnest in July.

Katz said he could not confirm that the problem-oriented policing calls represented execution of that plan because publicly identifying hot-spot locations would compromise its integrity. Moore previously confirmed that parts of South Hosmer Street would be included in the plan.

In January, the Econo Lodge’s owner was in the process of splitting the parcel that connected the motel to their adjacent business, the Quality Inn & Suites, in preparation for the sale. Danielle Larson, the city’s tax and license manager, sought an update on the process from a city planning employee and noted that authorities would appreciate anything the city could do to move things along quicker.

“I am only asking as (the Tacoma Police Department) is anxious to get this property into the hands of a new owner,” Larson wrote in an email to four others in the city. She added that police “have had a lot of calls for service there and issues that they are not able to resolve with the current owner.”

Lee confirmed that officials did not believe they were getting needed results on the public safety issues that were recurring at the Econo Lodge. The acknowledgment calls into question how effective a voluntary-compliance approach had been for the most crime-plagued motel on the corridor at the time.

“Certainly, at least part of the (chronic) nuisance code should have applied,” Council member Joe Bushnell said in a Nov. 11 interview. “It’s frustrating that it’s not being used a bit more, but I don’t necessarily blame any one person for that.”

After diving more into the code’s apparent limitations, Bushnell said in a follow-up interview on Nov. 30 that the city must continue to address the broader crime issue on the commercial strip and that the code was not strong enough nor an appropriate measure to do so.

Bushnell, who represents the area, said that efforts to bring meaningful change would go beyond law enforcement action. He said he is also working to establish a resource center nearby to assist with job training, financial planning and more for people who stay at the street’s motels and low-income apartments.

“It’s still a struggle for a lot of folks,” he said, adding that he was nonetheless “optimistic” about the street’s future.

Actions against problematic properties

There is a precedent for holding South End Tacoma businesses accountable for public safety concerns and high volumes of police calls when officials have felt it was warranted.

In November 2016, the Calico Cat Motel was ordered shut down after the Tacoma-Pierce County Health Department found it unlivable, with most rooms contaminated by methamphetamine. Following a police narcotics investigation in May 2017, the city suspended the Morgan Motel’s business license. It was suspended again later that year and for good two years later after the motel’s owner was among four people arrested on suspicion of drug-related crimes. Both motels had also been stricken by violence.

While the Calico Cat and Morgan motels had lower call volumes than the most police-summoned lodging establishments on South Hosmer Street, they also were much smaller.

For example, the Econo Lodge was responsible for 430 calls last year, police data shows. When the Calico Cat Motel closed, it had 215 calls nearly 11 months into 2016. The Morgan Motel saw 146 calls in the year period leading up to its 2017 license suspension.

The Econo Lodge had 105 rooms, and the Calico Cat and Morgan motels had 25 and nine, respectively, at their time of construction, according to Pierce County property records.

On July 1, 2019, the city targeted a motorcycle club, citing five troubling incidents at the club during a six-month period beginning in December 2018.

In that instance, the city declared the club a chronic nuisance.

The 105th Anniversary Clique MC Club had two shooting deaths, a stolen firearm was found during a security search at the doors, an aggressive and intoxicated patron caused a disruption and the club failed to obtain licensing to serve alcohol, according to the club’s notice of violation.

Lee said the club did not adhere to the correction agreement entered into in February 2020. It called for the business to obtain needed licensing, restrict adult entertainment and follow safety and security recommendations, among other directives. The city pursued other unspecified enforcement options and suspended the club’s business license in September 2021, she said. The property owner, at 3825 Yakima Ave., evicted the club that same month.

Exploitative behavior

Cities across the U.S. have adopted their own strategies for addressing issues that arise at budget motels, which are susceptible to being exploited by locals seeking to engage in bad behaviors such as drug sales, prostitution and disruptive partying, according to a 2005 report titled, “The Problem of Disorder at Budget Motels.”

The report, produced by Arizona State University’s Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, said that overnight lodging was conducive to crime and disorder for several reasons, including low rates, acceptance of cash payments and relatively few safeguards.

In municipalities that lack resources to provide oversight of motels, often located in high-crime commercial areas, “motel managers have little incentive to accept responsibility for problems,” according to the report.

The city of Oakland adopted the strategy of telling an establishment to abate a nuisance by a certain date or face penalties, leaving it up to the business to decide how to accomplish that instruction, according to Scott, the center’s director. Otherwise, a property might be let off the hook for issues if it complies with local government directives that prove to be ineffective in reducing them.

Some cities have published guides for property owners, Scott said. Others have set limits on police calls before action is taken, inserting objectivity into the process and lowering the risk for accusations of selective enforcement.

Whatever the method, tying a business license to expectations of safety is a “very sensible” approach, he said. He added that being tough on problematic motels is also in the best interest of vulnerable renters who have few to no other options but to stay there, although a local government should first ensure that renters get relocated to safe housing.

“But the way to address (repeat problems) is to not just let those properties continue to operate that way,” he said. “Essentially those (renters) are being taken advantage of, and their life challenges are sort of compounded by being forced to live in a crappy motel.”

A News Tribune investigation published in August illustrated the chaos enveloping the street, which sometimes spilled into neighborhoods and pushed those in residential and commercial properties to the brink. Several motel and hotel representatives assured that they were doing their best to deflect criminal activity.

HomeTowne Studios had installed $20,000 worth of fencing, closed off one of two property entrances, hired nighttime security and used LED lighting to brighten inside and outside the motel, according to Lori Chandler, the district manager at Westmont Hospitality Group, which owns the establishment.

Chandler had said the motel also enacted a no-cash payment system and planned to cease renting rooms to locals.

“I can’t do anymore than what we’re already doing,” she had said. “It’s really exhausting for all of us.”

In early- to mid-2020, the motel contracted with the Washington State Department of Corrections to rent 20 rooms to early-release offenders, according to a July email to Katz from Max Benboe, a community liaison officer with the police department. Benboe, citing dialogue with Chandler, wrote that all but one DOC renter either got in trouble and returned to jail or went missing. The motel ended that relationship sometime in 2021.

Tami Rasmussen, the former regional manager at the Econo Lodge, pointed to the motel’s practice of filtering guests, requiring identification and calling law enforcement on bad actors.

“I expected police to do their job,” she said at the time.

Chandler did not return messages seeking comment for this story and Rasmussen declined an interview.

The News Tribune’s investigation, which found that South Hosmer Street was the deadliest in the city, also shared the experiences of Janelle Wright, a 40-year-old former housekeeper at HomeTowne Studios who carried two sharpened hatchets out of fear for her safety and echoed frustrations that police were slow to respond to calls.

Wright had told The News Tribune during the summer that she had reached a conclusion on a resolution to the issues at hand: “Them cheap hotels need to be shut down because it’s attracting so much,” she said.

A revamped code, minimally used

September 2021 was a particularly troublesome month for the Econo Lodge.

The motel prompted 49 calls to the Tacoma Police Department — the motel’s third-highest monthly call volume in four years, according to a News Tribune analysis of police call logs.

Officers were dispatched to the motel after 35-year-old Antonio Robinson was shot to death in the parking lot following an apparent struggle over a stolen gun. They also responded to reports of other shootings, assault and intimidation with a weapon and a strong-armed robbery, among the most serious calls, according to that month’s log.

Sirrone Newbern, now 43, was charged in Robinson’s killing in a case that is still ongoing, court records show. Four shootings in a two-week span were documented by police, in addition to the attack that killed Robinson. In one, a man staying at the hotel was struck in the leg in a sequence of events an officer described as “chaotic” in a police report.

The incidents, taken collectively, could have led the city to employ the chronic nuisance code.

The chronic nuisance code might be only one of a slew of tools at the city’s disposal for tackling crime, but its intention is clear: To protect quality of life, health and safety and reduce a disproportionate consumption of city and police resources.

It gives the city formal oversight of a business’s efforts to comply.

Being subjected to the code is fairly high risk in theory. A business needs only to have three “nuisance activities” on or near its property within a 60-day period to fit the bill. It could also be tagged with the undesirable label after four such activities within six months, six within a year or two search warrants for drug activity within a year.

The activities that could put a business on the code’s radar are broad, ranging from acts of major violence to urinating in public, among many others.

The current version of the code stemmed from amendments made in September 2018 by the City Council in an effort to make it more robust and easier to use. In a memo to city lawmakers on Aug. 30, 2018, the City Attorney’s Office described the tool’s then-limitations and noted that concerns had been raised about its viability.

“While designed to address properties that consume a disproportionate amount of City resources because of criminal conduct and impact on neighboring properties, successful application of the code in its current form has proven either cumbersome, lengthy, or ineffective,” the memo said. “As a result it has been used minimally over the years.”

Since the revamp four years ago, its usage rate has worsened.

From 2003 to 2018, before the code was revised to its present version, as many as 22 properties either had, or might have been, subjected to the code’s provisions, according to Lee.

When the 105th Anniversary Clique MC Club was declared a chronic nuisance in 2019, she confirmed, it represented the lone instance of the city using the code in its present form.

“It will be and can be used when necessary, but we’re focused on accomplishing goals, not on whether or not we can use one tool or another,” Katz said.

A chronic nuisance declaration is a joint decision between city departments and police officials, according to Lee. The City Attorney’s Office reviews the pending move for legal requirements and the city’s tax and license department is responsible for monitoring a business’s progress for at least a year.

At the September 2018 City Council meeting where the code revisions were introduced, Deputy Mayor Catherine Ushka said she looked forward to hearing from city staff about how those changes were working. In a recent interview, Ushka said she now planned a full review of the code to ensure it was living up to its expectations.

Speaking broadly, Ushka said she wanted to be sure officials were approaching chronic-nuisance situations equitably and not permitting negative activities in areas where there might be existing perceptions of lower standards and safety.

She added that she already believed there was one shortcoming to the code.

“It doesn’t seem fast enough,” she said. “If you live next to a chronic property, you’d know why I’d want it to be faster.”

Like other officials, Ushka said the code has been useful despite its limited application. It brings multiple departments together to address a property from where repeat problems have arisen, including dialogue about the tools used and available, officials said.

Larson, the city’s tax and license manager, said she has seen positive effects from the changes implemented in 2018, which expanded the list of nuisance activities, added enforcement options and streamlined the administrative process, among other amendments, according to the city attorney’s office’s memo.

“I think all of those things were beneficial and it creates a better tool for the city,” she said.