photo by: Photo by Derek Redd

Wheeling City Council is discussing labeling Wheeling Inn a public nuisance.

WHEELING — Officials in the city of Wheeling will discuss Tuesday whether to have the Wheeling Inn – a hotel located on Main Street at the primary entrance to the downtown area – declared a public nuisance.

Designating the hotel a nuisance would suspend its operations at least through the date of a public hearing. Hotel management said closing the Wheeling Inn’s doors would eliminate an option for people who need emergency shelter.

A resolution is being introduced during Tuesday night’s Wheeling City Council meeting to accept the recommendation of City Manager Robert Herron that conditions regarding property located at 949 Main St. in Wheeling present a public nuisance.

Under Herron’s report of the city manager, a detailed 32-page memorandum is included about this recommendation for the Wheeling Inn. The report includes supporting documents from Police Chief Shawn Schwertfeger and Fire Chief Jim Blazier with reviews of a myriad of service calls to the hotel in recent years.

Herron recommended that city council declare the site a public nuisance and that a public hearing on this matter be set for noon on Tuesday, May 3, in city council chambers.

“It is my opinion that the need for this action is immediate, as the property will also not be permitted to be occupied currently and throughout these proceedings pursuant to the city’s ordinance,” Herron stated in his memorandum, adding that council’s action Tuesday evening “will enhance the public’s safety in this area of the city.”

On Wednesday of last week, city officials joined local dignitaries during a ceremonial groundbreaking directly across Main Street from the Wheeling Inn for Woda Cooper Companies’ new, multimillion-dollar investment – construction of a four-story apartment complex to be known as The Doris on Main. News about the new housing complex generated a social media buzz that included numerous comments about the condition of the hotel across the street and the alleged activity that takes place there.

Herron on Friday said the action against Wheeling Inn and the action to have it declared a public nuisance had “nothing to do with” the Woda project across the street. The action has been based on documented activity at the hotel – also known as the Knights Inn in Wheeling – and by a recommendation from Schwertfeger in the wake of an investigation that took place late last year known internally at the Wheeling Police Department as “Operation Knighthawk.”

The special operation, spearheaded during a 30-day period in July 2021 by Sgt. Jason Hupp, resulted in 27 arrests and citations, the execution of seven search warrants and the seizure of illegal drugs and drug paraphernalia.

“This property and the business associated with it have had a reputation for criminal activity and suspected criminal activity for several years,” Schwertfeger said in his report to the city manager, noting that after the Wheeling Suspension Bridge closed to vehicular traffic in the fall of 2019, criminal activity increased around the hotel property. “The Wheeling Inn became a very significant hub for drug activity and other vice crimes, particularly prostitution.”

A summary of service calls from the police department crime analysis database shows a total of 303 calls for 949 Main St. or directly outside the address between Jan. 1, 2019 and Nov. 16, 2021. Among those calls listed in the report were 94 motor vehicle traffic calls or stops, 20 calls for drug activity, one for sexual assault, one for gunshots and nine cases of drug overdoses, with four of the nine resulting in the death of the victim.

According to a brief report provided this past week by Fire Chief Blazier, the Wheeling Fire Department since 2019 has responded to 127 incidents at the Wheeling Inn.

“Nearly 90% of our incidents at 949 Main St. are emergency medical calls or police matters,” Blazier said. “Many of these medical emergencies are drug and alcohol related. We believe that this is posing a burden on emergency services and a safety risk to our personnel.

“Most of the patients that we encounter at the Wheeling Inn have a home address in or around the Wheeling area, indicating that these are not travelers. We believe that the situation at the Wheeling Inn constitutes a public nuisance and safety concern for our staff, as well as the community.”

The reports noted that prior to “Operation Knighthawk” in the fall of last year, the Wheeling Police Department would “receive generous cooperation while investigating incidents there from staff.” Since the investigation, “calls for services have subsided in frequency,” according to Schwertfeger’s reports to the city manager. Since the operation took place, cooperation from the staff has ceased, according to the police chief.

Among those arrested during the operation was the hotel’s operator, Anand Avrind Patel, who was 37 last fall, who along with an employee at the time, Daniel Paul Wheeler, 30, both of Wheeling, were charged with maintaining or operating a drug premises.

“Since the operation has concluded, the Wheeling Police Department no longer receives minimal, if any cooperation from management at the location,” Scwertfeger noted. “Although activity may have slowed, we continued to be called to 949 Main St. for problems, most notably the other day for another overdose death.”

The owners of the Wheeling Inn — NALINI LLC — operated under the business license held by Patel’s father, Avrind Patel of Wheeling, provided a statement to the Sunday News-Register. It said that management still cooperates with police in their investigations. However, ever since the hotel management willingly provided investigators with hotel rosters during the operation, only to see Patel named among those in the criminal charges and accompanying press release, they have been understandably less willing to hand over hotel rosters.

“The Wheeling Inn is not a nuisance, and The Wheeling Inn has always had a working relationship with the Wheeling Police department,” the ownership stated. “The actions that Chief Schwertfeger is now pursuing will not only make the Wheeling Inn’s current guests homeless but also seek to eliminate one of the few options for those who need emergency shelter.”

The Wheeling Inn has worked with many local organizations such as Youth Services System, House of Hagar, YWCA, the Homeless Coalition, Helping Heroes and Catholic Charities to provide emergency discounted, short-term housing to their clients who have no other viable options outside of homelessness, management said, noting that the hotel is not so much a tourist designation as it is a means for transitional housing for many local individuals.

“But there remains a certain privileged segment of those in downtown Wheeling who see these less fortunate individuals not as human beings but instead as a hindrance to progress and seek to penalize them along with those who help them,” they said.

Wheeling Inn management said they do not discriminate against guests based on their appearance, and they indicated the location they serve in the city of Wheeling is in a block where many of the service calls listed in the police chief’s complaint occur outside of the hotel.