Hotel inspection was delayed by ‘worker’s error’

Dan Kulin

Tuesday, April 19, 2005 | 11:06 a.m.

A three-week gap between a complaint and full inspection of a downtown Las Vegas hotel co-owned by the mayor's son occurred because a city inspector made a computer error, a city official said.

That error resulted in the matter not being forwarded to a senior code enforcement officer as it was supposed to be, Deputy City Manager Betsy Fretwell said last week.

Instead, the full inspection of the Boulevard Hotel at 525 Las Vegas Blvd. South was prompted by Metro Police who told city code enforcement officials during their regular monthly meeting that they should check out the property for building code violations, police said.

The March 31 inspection resulted in the city closing off 33 rooms in the 57-room hotel that rents by the week and month. Thirty-one of those rooms were already unoccupied when inspectors visited them. City officials said each of the closed-down rooms had several violations including no heat, no hot water, mold, or continuously running water.

The Boulevard Hotel is co-owned by attorneys Louis Palazzo and Ross Goodman, whose father is Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman.

City officials have said that on March 10 a city inspector visited the property in response to a complaint from a hotel tenant. But the inspector, Gerald Guzman, decided the property was in such bad shape that a higher-ranking code enforcement officer should visit the building.

Fretwell said Guzman, a city employee for 19 years, filed a report on the property in a computer, as he was supposed to, but then did not punch the correct keys to transfer it to the other inspector. Fretwell said Guzman and the other inspectors have been filing their own reports into the computer system since mid-January.

"He closed the case and then he was supposed to re-open the case and send it," Fretwell said.

Fretwell said that on April 4 clerks in the department checking past cases realized the error and sent it to the proper inspector, but by that time the inspection had already occurred.

"The first step was done, the second wasn't, but we did catch it," she said.

Guzman did not return telephone messages left at his office Friday. A receptionist said he was not at work Friday.

Metro Police Sgt. Eric Fricker said officers told city officials about possible code violations at the Boulevard Hotel for the first time during their meeting on March 30.

Police had been to the property numerous times in recent months, and on March 16 sent Ross Goodman and Palazzo a notice declaring the hotel a "chronic nuisance," saying there had been increased criminal activity at the hotel, including an alleged drug deal involving an undercover detective, which the police said threatened the public safety.

Fricker, who oversees Metro's chronic nuisance detail, said under city ordinances a property can be designated a chronic nuisance even if just one drug-related violation occurs there, Fricker said, or if three non-drug-related nuisance incidents happen there within a month.

The matter was resolved when the tenant, who was the subject of at least one criminal investigation, was evicted, Fricker said.

"They responded quickly and responsibly and they did a great job by doing it," Fricker said.

Palazzo said the notice from police was the first time he and Ross Goodman had heard of any problems at the hotel.

Palazzo appealed the police notice that he believed labeled the property a chronic nuisance. He said he will drop the appeal because he believes their plans to demolish the building make the complaint moot. Appeals are handled by the City Council.

Fricker said the appeal is unnecessary because the matter has been resolved as far as the police are concerned.

Palazzo and Goodman have said they plan to demolish the building within the next 60 days, and are negotiating with companies they would not name to possibly build a new building on the land.

The property is next to a building owned by 86-year-old Christine Von Sturm, who the two attorneys are suing to try to force a sale they say the woman wrongly backed out of.

The two properties are also next to city-owned land for which city officials are negotiating a development agreement.

Christina De Musee, Von Sturm's daughter, said she had not been following the events at the Boulevard Hotel but said she was not surprised at the delay. De Musee has fought the suit on her mother's behalf.

"All I can say is I'm sure if I were in violation of the building codes they'd be out there right away," she said.