A room in complete disrepair is seen during an inspection Monday at the Red Carpet Inn and Fanta Suites in Greenwood.

Photo provided by the Johnson County Health Department

Employees continue to reside in the Red Carpet Inn and Fanta Suites while the hotel continues to be a health hazard, officials found following an inspection Monday.

The owners of the troubled Greenwood hotel, 1117 E. Main St., have failed another inspection as officials prepare for a court hearing to force compliance with previous orders to vacate and repair the property.

On Nov. 15, the nine-member Greenwood Advisory Plan Commission affirmed a previous order that required all occupants — with the exception of workers conducting repairs — to vacate the property. The same order also gave Ahmad Mubarak, the owner of the hotel, 10 days — until Nov. 25 — to make needed repairs and improvements to the building.

City, fire department and health department officials determined Monday that conditions continued to be troubling despite some work being done by hotel staff. The goal of the inspection was to confirm the hotel’s compliance, officials said.

“It appeared that they were actively working to correct some of the violations,” building commissioner Kenneth Seal told the Daily Journal Tuesday. “Many of the other violations, they were still there, just not addressed.”

Items in some rooms were still not working properly, and ceiling tiles and plumbing fixtures were missing in others. There was also still quite a bit of mold, along with some cockroaches and bedbugs still being present, Seal said.

The hotel ultimately failed the inspection.

“All of these items were supposed to be addressed by now, they were supposed to be addressed previously,” he said.

Officials originally planned to inspect all three buildings of the hotel, including every room. However, inspectors were told that only the main building had been worked on, said Betsy Swearingen, director of the Johnson County Health Department.

Outside the hotel, officials saw a lot of debris scattered and piled up as if it were thrown off some of the hotel’s balconies, rather than taken to a dumpster. This included mattresses and pieces of old furniture, Seal said.

Once entering the hotel, inspectors realized it was “somewhat cleaner.” However, of the about 40 rooms inspected, only a handful were anywhere close to ready to rent, Swearingen said.

“The issue is is one would be ready to rent, and then the one next door to it would have open holes to the exterior,” she said. “So in all essence, it wasn’t technically ready to rent because it was next to a room that was unfit.”

As inspectors looked through the rooms, some of the furniture still had mold growing on it. Most of the mattresses were soiled and had not been replaced as they were anticipating. While hotel staff had said they bought new bedding, inspectors did not see it, she said.

“No room was completely ready to go as we expected it to be,” Swearingen said. “We anticipated walking in and it would be rental ready, and nothing was rental ready.”

When officials made it to the second floor of the main building they inspected, the main hallway was cluttered and barely passable in some areas. This was especially concerning as the owner had told inspectors this was the building he had worked on enough to supposedly reopen, Seal said.

“It was very far from that,” he said.

On top of these issues, the hotel had still not been vacated. While hotel staff has told officials that they’re not accepting new customers, the owner has said between 7-to-9 hotel staff continue to live there, and officials believe children are there as well.

“There’s probably 7-to-9 adults with a number of children that that still occupy each of the three buildings, and so they have not followed the order to vacate,” Seal said.

Inspectors were not granted access to the areas where the staff members are staying, however, along with the hotel’s two other buildings, Swearingen said.

“By (his) own admission, those buildings are in far worse shape than they were the last time we were there,” she said.

While the city has issued orders like this in the past, they’ve never dealt with a situation quite like this, Seal said.

“In the past, one other time, when we felt that necessary to take measures such as this, there was a good response and we were able to work with the business owner and get everything into compliance, and even build a good relationship on the right track,” he said. “It’s just a matter of this individual is not responding in a manner that you would think would be helpful.”

This situation has going on for nearly a year and a half without any measurable progress. Officials aren’t out to get the owner, the matter is foremost about health and safety, he said.

“If you’re going to be a business, you have to be able to provide a certain minimum amount of amenities and health and safety and these types of things,” Seal said.

City officials are going to court on Dec. 6 in order to seek an injunction to force the hotel’s compliance with both the vacation and repair orders.

“He willfully admits there are still people staying there, which is very disappointing, and after looking at the results of the inspection, nothing is being followed through as it’s being said to be followed through,” Mayor Mark Myers said Tuesday.

If the court finds Mubarak in violation of the order to vacate, city officials will likely file notice through the plan commission to again issue an order to bring it up to standards, which he is already under. If he continues to not comply, the city will go to court again to get an order for demolition, Myers said.

Mubarak does have the right to appeal throughout the process.

“It’s not going to happen overnight,” Myers said. “There is due process of the law to make sure we do everything by the book so there is no way to slip through the cracks on it.”