After a leaking skylight gave way under heavy snow, Dunsmuir city officials this week closed the broken-down Traveler’s Hotel, forcing 18 people to find a new place to live.
“It’s a tough thing to do during the holidays,” acknowledged Dunsmuir City Manager Jim Lindley.
In the city’s downtown historic district, the hotel has fallen into disrepair during the past few years, Lindley said. After the skylight collapsed Nov. 21, falling glass and debris also broke a sprinkler pipe, setting off the fire alarm and flooding the lower floors, Lindley said.
The Dunsmuir Fire Department helped patch the hole in the roof left by the broken skylight and clean up the mess from flooding, he said.
But water damage from leaks has seriously weakened the structural integrity of the hotel, leaving empty space in the walls for fire to travel up and causing potentially dangerous situations with the electrical system, Lindley said.
That, coupled with fire-code violations and a malfunctioning heater, finally forced the city to shut down the building, he said.
“It’s such a detriment to public health and safety that we’ve decided to close it until the repairs can be made,” Lindley said.
Though the building is in the historic district, the city is not required to maintain the property. City staff members were trying to work with the owners of the hotel to get the building up to code before the skylight broke.
“We couldn’t get the owners of the hotel to come into compliance,” Lindley said.
The city issued a notice to vacate Nov. 24, and 18 residents had to be out by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
City staff members contacted Legal Services of Northern California to find a way to help out renters, he said.
The hotel owner is legally required to pay each renter two months rent to relocate, Lindley has said.
The owner is in India for a family wedding and could not be reached for comment, but her spokesman Eddie Bhatt said long-term renters were paying anywhere from $400 to $600 per month to stay in the hotel.
The Traveler’s Hotel had mixed clientele, some guests stayed a few nights to a week for skiing or fishing and some guests lived there, Bhatt said.
Julie Dew worked at the hotel for 20 years, seven years as a housekeeper and the last 13 as manager, she said.
“It really needs to be fixed up in the inside,” Dew said.
Dew was living at the hotel and managed to get to a one-bedroom apartment in Dunsmuir, she said Tuesday.
Most of her 17 guests moved to the Acorn Inn about a mile-and-a-half from the Traveler’s Hotel, Dew said.
Bhatt said repairs will be made and the hotel will reopen in the future, though he didn’t say exactly when repairs would be complete.
“We’re not just going to run away,” Bhatt said Tuesday.
He also said Dew will be rehired once the hotel reopens.
“She’s the best person we had,” Bhatt said.
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