The law asks business owners to help law enforcement in this regard, and asks from them a very low bar: not knowingly profiting from the illegal activity. This is not novel--the underlying principles of derivative liability date to the 17th century. Knowingly profiting from activity has always carried with it special responsibilities.
A motel is not like an ISP--the former has far more ability to control what happens on their premises. Indeed, at common law, inn keepers could be held liable for failing to secure their property resulting in theft or loss of a guest's belongings. Moreover, there is a big distinction, both in law and in common sense, between knowing in the abstract that your service is used for illegal activity, and knowing about specific illegal activity and turning a blind eye. E.g. if you sell a gun knowing the buyer intends to murder someone with it, you can be held liable as an accomplice!
Not knowing or profiting from illegal activity is such a nebulous claim that it can't be enforced except in the most extreme situations. All ISPs profit from illegal activity. The problem is identifying individual instances of it is nearly impossible. In the same way this motel owner had an impossible task of identifying drug users or other criminals without having any specific knowledge of criminal activity. I do not want to live in a society where business owners are empowered to deny service because someone "looks like" a drug user. I'll let you imagine all the myriad ways that can be abused.
Don't argue with a straw man. This is not a situation where the government was going after a business owner for not denying service to someone who "looks like" a drug user. This was a situation where drug dealers were openly operating out of the guy's motel rooms. Someone was running a goddamn meth lab out of one of the rooms.
If he was so "openly" operating, why didn't the police arrest him? If they did, then what's the problem? Did they expect the motel owner to turn them in sooner? What exactly is enough evidence to assume someone is running a drug dealing operation? Are they expected to take note of how many people come and go during a given day? Profile their behavior? These seems like unreasonable expectations of the owner to me.
Maintaining law and order in the community is not only the responsibility of the police. The police cannot be everywhere, all the time. They can piece together a picture of what's going on by interviewing nearby residents after the fact, but in these sorts of communities it can be months or years before the police become aware of such activity and address it. People in the community have to participate, and businesses have a special responsibility to make sure their property is not used for illegal activity.
Yes, a motel owner is supposed to be generally aware of how many people come and go during the day, what kind of people, etc. This is not a high expectation, and it's the price of living in civilized society.
I'm not sure what you're background is, but safe, civilized communities don't spring up like mushrooms in a damp field. That's not the nature of humanity. Cooperating with the police and actively taking steps to keep illegal activity in check is what separates good working class neighborhoods from the ghetto.
I don't disagree with any of that. But its not clear how we go from that to seizing and liquidating their property. Did law enforcement engage with them to see how they could work together to reduce crime? Somehow I doubt that.
A motel is not like an ISP--the former has far more ability to control what happens on their premises. Indeed, at common law, inn keepers could be held liable for failing to secure their property resulting in theft or loss of a guest's belongings. Moreover, there is a big distinction, both in law and in common sense, between knowing in the abstract that your service is used for illegal activity, and knowing about specific illegal activity and turning a blind eye. E.g. if you sell a gun knowing the buyer intends to murder someone with it, you can be held liable as an accomplice!