PENDLETON — The Marigold Hotel in downtown Pendleton has become a hotspot for crime, and city officials are moving to shut it down, according to Pendleton Police Chief Chuck Byram.

The city has suspended the hotel’s business license amid a steep increase in crime there and in the wake of a recent shooting that left one person hospitalized and resulted in a car accident downtown.

A grand jury on Nov. 16 indicted defendant Steven Enko, 40, of Pendleton, on fourteen counts related to the shooting — nine of which are felonies. According to the indictment, there were five victims in all, and two appeared before the grand jury.

“We just can’t continue on the route that we’re on,” Byram said. “It’s endangering the public too much.”

Byram said the hotel’s management have been “complicit in said criminal activity.” He declined to say whether management were complicit in the shooting but called the incident the “catalyst” that prompted him to move with the approval of the city manager and attorney to suspend the business license, pending its permanent revocation.

The hotel’s owner, Shivam Patel, will have the opportunity to appeal the move at the next Pendleton City Council meeting Dec. 7.

“When we know that it’s being allowed to happen, that those people who are committing these acts are being allowed to stay there,” Byram said. “Even if Mr. Patel knows it or not, management staff is allowing those people to live there, so therefore it’s creating a danger to our community.”

Byram declined to elaborate specifically on how management has been complicit, but said he might say more at the upcoming appeal hearing “if and when it’s needed.”

Patel said he plans to appeal the city’s move to revoke his hotel’s license. He said he is working with the city and police “day and night” to find new strategies to curb crime at the hotel, but declined to provide any examples about what those strategies are.

Patel declined to respond to Byram’s statements of management being complicit in criminal activity.

Crime increases for years at hotel

In 2019, Byram said the department received less than 100 calls for service regarding the hotel. In 2020, the department received 212 calls. So far in 2021, the department has received 276 calls.

That’s the second most calls for a single business in Pendleton, according to Byram. The most calls have come from Walmart. But Byram noted those calls are typically for shoplifting and result in arrests because the business has reporting measures in place.

Calls at the hotel, Byram said, are more serious.

“The reason we go to the Marigold Hotel are because there are disturbances, there are fights, there’s drugs, there’s crime, there’s people stealing stuff, there’s warrants,” he said. “There’s all sorts of nasty behavior that goes on there, and it’s allowed to go on there because nothing is done to mitigate those things.”

Patel, who became the owner in November 2019, said most of those calls happened under previous management. He said the manager was a “very bad judge of character, leasing out rooms to everyone on a nightly basis and a daily basis.” That manager was fired in April.

Patel said his goal is to bring calls for service at the hotel to less than 50 calls per year.

“I need the city and chief of police to know I am taking this very seriously and I will get this turned around, for sure,” Patel said. “I just need their support.”

Hotel is nuisance property, police say

Criminal activity at the hotel stretches back to before Byram became police chief, he said. Stuart Roberts, the former police chief, was dealing with issues at the hotel by the time Byram arrived. In April, Byram declared the hotel a chronic nuisance property.

It’s one of several nuisance hotels in town, he noted, but the Marigold is “by far and away the biggest issue we’ve had.”

Byram declined to name the other hotels.

Byram attributed much of the problem to the fact that Patel lives in Portland and is not around to monitor what issues might arise. Byram said police have contacted Patel when there has been an uptick in crime at the hotel. He said Patel has been quick to respond, firing and hiring management and staff to clean things up.

But then, Byram said, Patel “does not hire the right people in our opinion, and things tend to go downhill.”

“It’s been that yoyo process with him and the Marigold throughout this process,” Byram said.

Patel said he plans to be at the hotel more often now. When reporters visited the hotel on Wednesday, Nov. 24, Patel was not there. He was in Portland.

Byram said the decriminalization of drugs in Oregon through Measure 110 has exacerbated the problem. He said police have been unable to arrest low-level offenders at nuisance properties like the hotel because of the legislation. That’s partly why crime has increased at the hotel since 2020, when the measure passed, Byram said

“You can have 39 fentanyl pills on you right now and all I can do is give you a ticket,” Byram said.

And recent case law requiring that informants testify in court rather than remain confidential have hindered police investigations into drug crimes, Byram said. He said the department’s drug task force is cracking down on “big fish,” but low-level offenders like those found at the hotel remain a problem in the city.

Byram said Patel is spending more time at the hotel. Patel has closed down and secured the rooms and has onsite management to ensure people stay off the property, Byram said.

However, Nov. 22, police responded to a report from the hotel and found a former employee with a master key card deactivated the magnetic locks. Police learned the former employee got into the room by opening up a window and crawling inside. Police found him sleeping in the room, Byram said, and arrested him for criminal trespassing.