Motel's Shutdown May Push Some to the Street

ST. PETERSBURG  – Victor Mikhael, a convenience store owner, has made 380 police calls this year alone to report crimes at the Economy Inn, which is next door to his 34th Street Sunoco station.

Prostitution. Drug deals. Threats. Assaults. "You name it. I've seen everything go on over there," said Mikhael, about the motel, which the city officially declared a public nuisance Tuesday. The Nuisance Abatement Board unanimously voted to shut down the motel and fine the owner $12,000.

The owner, RAJA Management Corp., has 30 days to evict about 50 adults and a few children who live in the rundown building, which is not used by tourists but transients who often pay by the day and claim they have no other place to live.

Yet Mikhael and some other business owners along this commercial strip of fast food places, mom-and-pop retailers and cheap motels stopped short of praising the city's firm hand.

They wonder what will happen to the property, at 451 34th St. North, after the tenants leave and the motel is empty.

"This area doesn't change, and the people don't leave. They just bounce from one motel to the next," said Mikhael, who has operated his filling station 24 hours a day, seven days a week, since 1991.

"You think that property looks bad now?" he said gesturing toward the motel, surrounded by broken fencing. "Let me tell you what will happen when it closes. There will be pimps, drug users, prostitutes breaking in and using the building. It will be insane."

Mikhael's solution? "Knock it down. Bulldoze it," he said. "Just get rid of it. Or build something else there."

Mikhael's bleak view of the neighborhood was shared Thursday by the tenants and managers of the Economy Inn.

Sylvia Banaski, who said she is disabled, has lived off and on at the Economy Inn for a few years. "It's high crime in there," Banaski said. "People are on drugs. They're crack dealers, and they try to hurt you."

Yet Banaski said she is running out of options on places to live, once the Economy Inn closes. The motel accepts Social Security payments for tenants who are on permanent disability.

The tenants say that they pay $700-$800 for their rooms, with the money going directly from Sunshine Payee Corp., a nonprofit that manages entitlement payments for clients, to the motel.

"I have just $100 left for the rest of the month after my rent is paid," said Ron Harris, who has been disabled for 15 years. "I'll be back on the street after this place closes. I don't have anywhere else to go."

Although Banaski and Harris both said they are not drug users, they claim that many of the other tenants are drug-addicted and resort to crime for money.

Another tenant, who asked that his name not be used, said he is a recovering alcoholic who would otherwise be homeless if he did not stay at the motel. At the same time, the tenant said he feels the management "takes advantage of people's misery."

The motel provides basic accommodations, as well as a small refrigerator and a microwave. Tenants have to bring their own towels and buy their own toilet paper. People kick holes in the walls, and the windows appear to have no screens.

Shantia Singh, who is listed as president of the motel, has not commented on the city's decision. But two men who work as day managers at Economy Inn said she is vowing to clean up the place and redo the rooms after the tenants leave in 30 days. Both managers said they don't want to use their names to keep a low profile, because their job has been a work release program from prison.

They praised Singh for hiring them and providing steady employment.

Singh wants to fix up the 50-room motel and start renting rooms by the month to attract a more responsible clientele, they said. She declined to talk to reporters and drove away in her SUV.

Mikhael said that the RAJA Corp. has been trying to sell the property for years, at one point asking the convenience store owner if he wanted to buy it for $1.6 million. "What would I do with that place?" he said. "It's a problem. A big problem."