11 - Motel Ordinance RequestItem No. 11
memorandum
TO: City Council
Gene Anderson, Interim City Manager
FROM: Bob Hundley, Chief of Police
SUBJECT: MOTEL ORDINANCE REQUEST
DATE: October 2, 2019
BACKGROUND: A citizen presented the council with a petition requesting adoption of an
ordinance that would help control criminal activities at local hotels and rental properties in the
city. An ordinance from the city of Grand Prairie was also presented as an example of what that
city and others had put into place for crime control.
STATUS OF ISSUE: The city council directed the chief of police to review the Grand Prairie
ordinance and see what could be used here in Paris with respect to hotels and motels.
I researched the total of police calls for service at each hotel for one full year; September of 2018
through September of 2019. Since the hotels do not all have the same number of rooms, the total
calls of service at each were divided by the number of rooms at each to provide a "calls for service
(`CFS') per room" ratio. It would not be appropriate to judge a 40 room hotel straight across to a
hotel with 114 rooms.
There is a quite a difference of the CFS numbers per room ratio at our hotels. This ratio ranges
from the lowest at 8 CFS, to the highest of 129 CFS in the 12 months. The hotels are of varying
ages, locations and ownership. An outside physical inspection of each hotel revealed well lighted
parking lots, some entry ways and walkways that could be better illuminated but nothing
extraordinary that would invite criminal activity. The hotels are primarily on the NE Loop in
business areas with others bordering residential areas.
Contact was made with the owners, front desk personnel or managers regarding the procedures
used when patrons are renting rooms. An immediate correlation was found. All hotels in Paris
require a personal identification to rent a room but those hotels which required a government
identification card along with a major credit card (even if paying with cash or check) had
noticeably lower CFS than those motels which did not require a credit card, accepting cash as
payment and less expensive.
With respect to the inspection requirements in the Grand Prairie ordinance, there may well be a
correlation in the reduction of CFS and an intense inspection effort on the part of building officials
for locations with higher CFS; however, this is likely, not because the inspection will call for
repairs to the physical plant of the building, but because hotel personnel will want to avoid the
city's scrutiny in the first place.
Before we pass an ordinance, it may be best to tackle the issue by a more focused community
policing effort. The department would continue to track the last 12 months CFS totals for all hotels
in the city and based off those real numbers, focus on the hotels that continue to have problems.
Such focus would include making our crime prevention officer available to discuss first hand with
the hotels what steps they could take to lower the incidence of CFS and using our community
oriented police officer to help them make decisions on what they can do to address people who
cause these issues. The department already employs this approach other locations in the city that
become "hot spots".
This approach will take cooperation from the hotels we determine as those needing CFS reduction.
Of the 13 hotels, the biggest jump in the ratio of CFS to total rooms is .56 calls per room to .85
calls per room. From .85 to 1.91 includes only 6 of the motels. Those hotels whose CFS ratio is
.56 down to .10 are not the issue.
If we see that we are not receiving cooperation from the hotels in need of reduction, or the efforts
we attempt are not successful, we can then look to some form of ordinance to require compliance.
BUDGET: No impact to the department budget.
RECOMMENDATION: Allow the department to focus on decreasing calls of service with the
cooperation of the hotels for a minimum of three months and report back to council.
Hotel
Kings Inn
Paris Extended Stay
Americas Best Value
American Inn & Suites
Motel 6
Baymont Inn
Day's Inn
Comfort Inn
Hampton Inn
Quality Inn
LaQuinta Inn
Paris Inn & Suites
Holiday Inn
Address
Calls For Service
Number of Rooms
Ratio
1907 Lamar Ave
90
47
1.914894
1518 Lamar Ave
85
46
1.847826
3755 NE Loop 286
129
80
1.6125
2501 N Main St
64
50
1.28
425 NE 35th ST
39
40
0.975
3560 NE Loop 286
97
114
0.850877
2650 N Main St
28
50
0.56
3035 NE Loop 286
18
56
0.321429
3563 NE Loop 286
20
67
0.298507
3505 NE Loop 286
14
62
0.225806
3205 NE Loop 286
14
72
0.194444
3075 NE Loop 286
8
44
0.181818
3025 NE Loop 286
9
84
0.107143
Average - 50.5
Totals
615
812