FREDONIA, NY — Owners of the former Econo Lodge Hotel in Fredonia are locked in a back-and-forth as village leaders look to condemn the property, deeming it "uninhabitable."
"I'm appalled. I'm appalled. It's not a safe place for anybody," Fredonia Mayor Michael Ferguson said.
The former hotel off Route 60 has been used as emergency housing for the past few years.
"It's a program where women and children could be housed safely and receive help getting back on their feet and getting somewhere safe," Ferguson said. "It's turned into something that has gotten out of control."
According to Ferguson, there have been over 500 police calls in the past year and a half alone, along with additional emergency service calls.
"It could be anything. It could be domestic violence, we've had a drug overdose, we've had a stabbing. We had a shooting last year, drug deals that have been witnessed or are taking place on the property," Ferguson continued. "And again, these are people that have already gone through the legal system, and obviously if they're still dealing drugs on the property, maybe haven't been rehabilitated as far as they should have been, so it's a danger to the community."
Ferguson says local businesses have complained about the property's tenants. 7 News submitted a FOIL request to the Fredonia Police Department for the number of 911 calls to the property from 2021onward.
"There's mold, there's mildew, there's a lack of emergency exit signs. You can go on and on," Ferguson continued. "It's not a good situation at this point, and I felt it was best at this point, considering that we were thinking of closing it down last year. With these violations, it's the safest thing to do."
WATCH: 'Out of control': Fredonia moves to condemn former hotel, citing 'uninhabitable' conditions
However, according to Richard Morrisroe, the legal counsel for Dunkirk Hospitality LLC, the property's current owners, the conditions being described to the public are not the case.
"My client does concede that the property needs a new roof, that's without a doubt, but it's not currently leaking," Morrisroe said. "There are some rooms that are unoccupied and remain that way pending remodeling to make them occupable, and the issue we have with the village is that they picked out the worst rooms and then condemned based on those conditions. So our contention is that, yes, the property needs work without a doubt, and most of that falls on my client, but there are some other costs in management of behaviors that there's a question there as to who's ultimately responsible."
Morrisroe said the blame can be placed on several parties, not just the owners.
"It's an uneasy mixing of economics, socioeconomics, public policy and the politics of where you put folks, especially folks who have additional needs," Morrisroe said. "This is a situation that's not of the village or the hotel's making entirely. Responsibility has to be shared by both parties to some degree, but also by additional parties that are not part of this, in the middle of the dispute, but are related parties. I understand the frustration of the village. At the same time, and this is where again things were handled informally, the mistake the village made was they didn't hold my client's feet to the fire using the formal code enforcement process."
According to Morrisroe, his clients are having discussions with village leadership to set up a follow-up inspection in order to prevent a full condemnation. However, Mayor Ferguson tells me current tenants are expected to vacate the property by Wednesday, and the building will be condemned on Friday.
In response to this, Morrisroe said, "The property doesn't need to be vacated. There are areas that have been sectioned off and some rooms that will be unoccupied because they're not yet ready for occupancy. We're trying to schedule a follow-up visit and inspection to ferret that out and hopefully have, at worst, a partial shutdown, and not a full condemnation of the property. I think if we can accomplish that, we can avoid litigation and get the hotel to where it needs to be to fully operate."
