New Port Richey has enjoyed the first fruits of its chronic nuisance ordinance which was passed late in 2013. The Travel Inn at 7532 US19 was, for the second time, categorized by Magistrate Joseph Poblick as a “chronic public nuisance” and ordered closed until problems can be addressed by its owners.
The City was also awarded a $2,500 fine against the motel which must be paid by its owners, Dineshbhai and Kailasben Patel. Magistrate Poblick also ordered that a new action plan be drawn up that include the hiring of a licensed security officer between the hours of 6 PM and 6 AM.
The motel has been plagued with prostitution and other crimes, police say.
Here’s the issue with the enforcement of this ordinance: it has taken far too long. The current ordinance requires far too many arrests at a single property to have much effect on crime in the City. It doesn’t go nearly far enough in holding chronically irresponsible property owners in New port Richey responsible for the events occurring on their property. The motel that has been shut down is less than a quarter mile from the home of sitting New Port Richey council member Jeff Starkey, and it still took more than a year for the motel to finally be shut down under the ordinance.
Of course, there is always such a thing as due process, but that process should not be months long. The long term outcome of the situation at the Travel Inn is likely to be the eventual demolition of the motel. How else could it be expected to end in an area that is so plagued with prostitution and drug crime issues? Many tenants at the hotels along New Port Richey’s US19 corridor are just that–tenants. These are not temporary units being rented out overnight to tourists. They are being rented for long periods of time as residences.
The City has a history, lately, of creating new ordinances that create a structured process to protect the City from lawsuits–or at least attempt to do that. The issue here, however, is that being reactive to problems is not the answer. They’re so afraid of being sued that they prevent themselves from actually solving the problem. And those protection measures don’t always work anyway. For instance, the City’s prostitution ordinance is blatantly unconstitutional and will open the City to lawsuits for discriminatory enforcement (by using prior convictions as probable cause). New Port Richey’s leaders will have to do much more to address the lack of development and chronic economic depression of the surrounding area in order to address the long term problem. Not only that, but they will have to be more creative in how they deal with elements that are unwanted.

