Friday, April 1, 2005 | 11:04 a.m.
Some rooms had no heat or hot water, and some had mold and continuously running water. And when a team of Las Vegas inspectors first arrived Thursday morning the main fire alarm wasn't working at the downtown Boulevard Hotel, which is owned by a partnership co-managed by Mayor Oscar Goodman's son Ross.
The fire alarm was fixed by late afternoon, but the city shut down 40 of the roughly 60 rooms in the hotel at 525 Las Vegas Blvd. South, city Neighborhood Services Director Orlando Sanchez said.
Some people were displaced. Sanchez didn't know how many, but he said they all got their money back.
All of the rooms the city closed had several problems that also might have included holes in the ceilings, no carpets, missing or broken windows, or in some rooms no toilet, he said.
"It was basically in disarray," said Sanchez, who did not visit the building but spoke with his inspector.
Ross Goodman and fellow attorney Louis Palazzo are the co-managers of GP Properties LLC, which bought the Boulevard Hotel in August 2004 for $1.3 million, according to records from the Secretary of State's and Clark County Assessor's offices.
Ross Goodman and Palazzo did not return telephone messages left at their offices late Thursday and this morning.
No fines were levied Thursday, which Sanchez said was normal because the city's goal is to get problems resolved, not make money.
The rooms, which were rented by the month, will have to be brought up to code and re-inspected before they can be occupied again, Sanchez said. The owner can also choose to board up and lock the property. A follow-up investigation is expected April 8, 10 days after the violations were found, he said. The owners have no deadline to make the improvements or close the property.
A tenant at the hotel complained to Neighborhood Services on March 10. An inspector responded but the complaint was referred to a higher-ranking code enforcement officer to inspect the entire property.
It took another three weeks for the code enforcement officer to review the property and find the widespread violations. Sanchez said he did not know why it was not until March 31 that the inspection occurred.
Around 8:45 a.m. Thursday, a Metro Police officer contacted city officials after seeing what he believed to be numerous building code violations in the hotel. Sanchez did not know why the police were initially called there.
Officer Jose Montoya, a Metro spokesman, said officers responded twice on Thursday to the area near the hotel, once for a traffic stop and again for a traffic accident.
Since Jan. 26, the furthest back information was provided this morning, officers have responded to the hotel 44 times, including once for a report of sexual assault and twice for narcotics-related reports, according to Metro records.
The March 10 complaint was the first in roughly a year, he said. Without an annual inspection policy in place, the city agency relies almost exclusively on citizen-driven complaints to launch inspections, Sanchez said.
Neighborhood Services officials are expected to take a proposal to inspect hotels annually to the Las Vegas City Council, he said.
"We'd love to be proactive," Sanchez said. "But it's hard with only 12 code enforcement officers for the valley."
Mayor Oscar Goodman, a champion of downtown revitalization who in the past had criticized negligent downtown landlords in general, said he did not talk to city staff before or after the violations were issued.
The mayor said the hotel-related issues had not come to his office or to the city council. Had they, Oscar Goodman said he would have abstained from voting on them.
"I stay out of my son's business because I don't want any appearance of impropriety," Oscar Goodman said. "If anyone catches me doing anything like that I deserve whatever I get."
Oscar Goodman said he rarely contacts or is contacted by city inspectors to discuss violations at other hotels.
The mayor spoke to his son this morning and said his son plans to demolish the building but said he did not know when.
"It's my son's intention to demolish it and I hope a beautiful building goes in its place," the mayor said.
Despite the plans, the mayor said his son's company had spent $50,000 to remodel the building after buying it in August.
Sanchez said he did not know if the renovations were made but that it "doesn't appear so."
No city inspections are required before a change in ownership of such a property, although buyers usually hire an independent inspector to look at the property, Sanchez said.
The Boulevard Hotel is next to a building Ross Goodman and Palazzo are trying to acquire from and woman named Christine Von Sturm, who is in her 80s. They are currently in litigation over their unsuccessful transaction for Von Sturm's building.
Von Sturm's daughter and court filings claim Goodman and Palazzo tried to take advantage of a woman not capable of making such business decisions on her own.
Goodman and Palazzo say Von Sturm was healthy enough to make business decisions, and claim she illegally ended their sale contract.
Both buildings are just south of the Lloyd D. George Federal Building, and on a city block that includes a city-owned parking lot.
City officials are negotiating a development deal with The Related Cos. and downtown developer Sam Cherry for the city-owned property.
Sun reporter Stephen Curran contributed to this story.
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