A vehicle bearing the name “The Red Carpet Inn and Fanta Suites” is broken down in front of the hotel on Sept. 16. Abandoned vehicles like this have been removed from the property, hotel employees said Monday.
Daily Journal File Photo
During a contentious public hearing that led to the owners of Red Carpet Inn being escorted out by police, a Greenwood commission affirmed an order to vacate the property.
The nine-member Greenwood Advisory Plan Commission unanimously voted Monday night to affirm an Oct. 24 order that required all occupants — with the exception of workers conducting repairs — to vacate the Red Carpet Inn and Fanta Suites, 1117 E. Main St. Ahmad Mubarak, the owner of the hotel, now has 10 days to comply with orders to make needed improvements to the building.
Despite the city and Mubarak reaching the previous October agreement to vacate the property within 48 hours, people remained there. The city has now filed an injunction to force vacation, Bill Barrett, an outside attorney representing the city of Greenwood, told the commission Monday.
The commission also issued a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for the hotel’s failure to comply with the order.
City officials have said the building is unsafe and dangerous and is full of health code and structural violations. These violations include cockroaches, bed bugs, exposed electrical wiring, leaking plumbing and sewage on the floor, said Kenneth Seal, building commissioner. Seal was walking the plan commission through an exhibit with photos from previous inspections.
There were also fire code violations including inoperable doors and several rooms without working smoke detectors, he testified.
“Regardless of the photo that you turn to, you’re going to find a level of dilapidation that is unbelievable as you see it, whether in person or in a photo,” Seal said. “I would say that nearly every room had some level of violation. Some of those photos were not taken just out of redundancy.”
Johnson County Health Department Director Betsy Swearingen testified that many of the violations found in a 2017 inspection still existed in some form in inspections that took place in 2021 and this year.
Seal and Fire Marshal Tracy Rumble visited the hotel earlier on Monday after receiving a complaint “in great detail” that the hotel was still occupied. Many of the rooms they visited, with the exception of one, were occupied, and still had smoke detectors that weren’t operable. There were also three employees working on Monday, Seal said.
Mubarak later disputed this in a cross-examination of Seal, asking exactly how many he people saw working. Seal went on to say there were quite a few, and Mubarak questioned how many he actually saw.
Barrett later interjected, objecting to Mubarak’s conduct.
“The witness needs to be allowed to answer the question,” Barrett said. “He’s arguing with the witness. This is not a debate.”
There was later a heated debate between Mubarak and Rumble over whether the hotel’s fire suppression system was part of the hotel’s overall safety system. Rumble said the hotel did not have a fire suppression system, which Mubarak bluntly refuted.
“I ask, respectfully, everybody to go now and see the premises,” Mubarak said. “We have set up fire extinguishers on each floor, and the building has a fire suppression system.”
Rumble replied, saying that fire extinguishers were not a suppression system. While extinguishers can put out a fire, a suppression system automatically comes on when there is a fire, like a sprinkler system, he said.
City attorney Shawna Koons, who was advising the plan commission, interjected during the heated debate, reminding Mubarak that he could not make statements at the time.
Outgoing plan commission president Trent Pohlar later slammed his gavel down and told Mubarak he was out of order for failing to follow the rules of the hearing. Throughout the entire hearing, Mubarak was repeatedly reminded to not testify during the cross-examination and to only ask questions of the city’s witnesses. At several points, he was accused of badgering witnesses.
“You will have a point in time when you can present your case and make your statements and your opinion of the matter and the facts,” Koons said.
When Mubarak later testified, he said hotel staff were working to bring the hotel back into compliance. Two hotel employees, Amanda Shaw and Chasity Burris, testified that staff has replaced furniture and broken toilets, sprayed for bugs, treated mold, ordered new linens, replaced ceiling tiles and taken other steps to address concerns. Abandoned vehicles have also been moved from the property.
Mubarak blamed staffing shortages and the death of one of their managers for some of the issues at the hotel. The death — which was due to a drug overdose — was one of the many reasons that led to increased scrutiny of the hotel.
He later brought up an inspection where he had an outside inspector conduct which he claims showed the hotel was safe. Barrett and Seal later addressed this, saying the independent inspector looked at the roof and foundations, not rooms inside the hotel.
Mubarak also said the government couldn’t dictate what businesses should stay and go.
“We don’t want to think we are in a communist place, heaven forbid,” Mubarak said. “This is the United States of America. This is the leader of the free world, where the customer, the client, decides ‘This business stays, this business goes, that business goes away,’ not the state (dictating) what businesses we should have.”
Mubarak said he has invested his whole life into the hotel. All he was asking was for a chance to show he means business, he said.
“We diligently aim to comply and rate among the best,” he said. “… The customer is the ultimate judge of any business, whether it stays or goes or grows, not decided by one man or somebody else.”
After the hearing had concluded and the plan commission issued its order, Mubarak, along with several hotel employees, continued to ask questions about what was next. Mubarak argued about the order and asked if an independent inspector could conduct the follow-up inspection.
The city of Greenwood is responsible for the inspection, not outside parties, Koons said.
Mubarak said he has been trying to fix the issues, and he questioned if anyone was going to be able to guarantee that the results were going to be any different. Pohlar replied that the hotel has had since June 2021 to fix the issues.
“This started a year and half ago. We’ve been more than patient in getting this property up to code,” Pohlar said. “You now have 10 days to follow the order of what we just approved.”
Two Greenwood police officers eventually walked into the city council chambers and told Mubarak and his employees it was time to leave. They were escorted out of the city center.
