The City of Cleveland has regulations dealing with the occupation and time limits on the number of days that a person is allowed to stay at a hotel or motel within the city. An individual may reside in, or occupy any room or rooms no more than a 14-day consecutive day period.
An exception can be made with the approval of a variance made on a case-by-case basis by the city council.
Monday night, August 18, the city council heard four requests for a variance to regulations. The requests were for four different individuals who have exceeded or are nearing their limit of stay.
All involved are people with rooms at the Knights Inn on South Main Street. Deborah Partain appeared before the council on behalf of Sam Patel, with the Knights. The council, after hearing information supplied, denied each variance.
Cleveland Mayor Josh Turner said, “So it puts us in a difficult situation from the hotel owners that allow these people to stay longer than they’re allowed and in conditions a lot of times that are not safe. So that’s one of our obligations is to protect a citizens, and these folks are citizens of Cleveland when they reside in these hotels. So that’s our position, and we’re going to protect them.”
One of the requests involved a single mother with three children. Even though the council denied the variance request, the council did instruct law enforcement to work with the mother to help get assistance from Family Promise and other agencies to assist the family in whatever way possible.
