This story is outrageous. Outrageous. 14 crimes have occurred there in 15 years... And the government just wants to seize $1.5 million worth of property and keep the proceeds. That is itself a crime.
It's not the hotel owners job to do the job of the police. I don't want to check into a hotel and have them check my police record, ask if I am planning to have visitors, scan my luggage in a metal detector to see if I am carrying anything suspicious or illegal. Not their job.
If they see a crime occurring or something suspicious, call it in. Fine. But to hold private business owners responsible for the conduct of their customers? Ridiculous.
I think you are probably misinformed about the history of this property. The directly cited criminal cases in the evidence for the property spans a 7 page bulleted wall of text. Multiple people died there. They found meth labs there. On multiple separate engagements, retail drug operations were found running out of rooms in the property. And that's just the drug crimes.
The government can't just "seize" the property. They're suing the property in civil court. For what appears to be very good reason. The whole thing is receiving a full hearing in front of an impartial judge.
Sounds to me to be exactly the kind of property a town needs. Get all that bad shit in one place so the police don't have to work finding the perps. Just station some agents in the hotel and go fishing.
Governments tried something similar with various housing project initiatives throughout the later part of the twentieth century.
It was an unmitigated disaster, and public policy has now shifted 180 degrees (with the biggest change in policy coming from the passing of the Public Housing Reform Act in 1998).
Even DC, where I live, has been working to undo fifty years of bad housing policy, with the shuttering and redevelopment of projects.
While serving on a homicide grand jury, ~20 of the 100 or so homicides we heard occurred at Sursom Corda, one of the last projects in the city, which was finally closed down.
It's not the hotel owners job to do the job of the police. I don't want to check into a hotel and have them check my police record, ask if I am planning to have visitors, scan my luggage in a metal detector to see if I am carrying anything suspicious or illegal. Not their job.
If they see a crime occurring or something suspicious, call it in. Fine. But to hold private business owners responsible for the conduct of their customers? Ridiculous.