G6 Hospitality Property, LLC v. Town of Braintree Board of Health
| Decision Date | 25 July 2017 |
| Docket Number | NOCV2017-00882,137626,CV2017-00882 |
| Parties | G6 Hospitality Property, LLC v. Town of Braintree Board of Health |
| Court | Massachusetts Superior Court |
In its complaint in this action, Plaintiff G6 Hospitality Property LLC (" G6"), which operates a Motel 6 located at 125 Union Street, Braintree, Massachusetts (" the Motel"), seeks certiorari review under G.L.c 249, § 4 of a decision made by the defendant, Town of Braintree Board of Health (" the Board"), to revoke G6's license to operate the Motel under G.L.c. 140 § 32B and c. 111, § 122.[1] At issue before the Court is G6's application for a temporary restraining order and motion for a preliminary injunction, enjoining the Board from enforcing its July 13, 2017, decision to revoke G6's license while this case is litigated.
For the reasons that follow, the Court concludes that G6 has not shown that it is entitled to a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, as it cannot show that it is likely to succeed on the merits. Its application and motion are thus DENIED.
The relevant facts in the administrative record provided to this Court are as follows.
On May 12, 2017, the Board notified the Motel that an emergency license revocation hearing would be held on May 18, 2017, to determine whether, pursuant to G.L.c. 140, § § 30 and 32B, G.L.c. 111, § 122 and 105 C.M.R. 410.000, the Motel had " violated certain provisions of [its] license" because of " concerns relating to public health and safety . . . as the result of the exorbitant number of police-related responses to the motel since 2010 including but not limited to sudden deaths, sexual assaults/offenses, drug overdoses, warrant services, as well as the most recent shooting of a Braintree police officer and apparent suicide [of the officer's assailant] that took place at Motel 6 on Friday, May 5, 2017."
Representatives of G6 and Braintree Mayor Joseph Sullivan (" the Mayor") agreed that the Board would not oppose G6's request to continue the hearing if G6 agreed to voluntarily close the Motel for 45 days, from June 1 to July 15, 2017 during which time G6 would work on improving the Motel's security protocol. Accordingly, G6 requested a continuance of the hearing. The Board approved the Motel's request. The Motel voluntarily closed June 1. The hearing was rescheduled for July 13, 2017. Prior to the July 13 hearing, a public notice was published in the local newspaper.
At the July 13, 2017 hearing (" the Hearing"), the Board heard testimony from both the Braintree Police Department and G6 representatives, and allowed G6 to cross examine the police witnesses. The Board also received an expert report submitted by G6.
Plaintiff G6 has been operating the Motel 6 located at 125 Union Street, Braintree, Massachusetts, since 1999. The Motel is located approximately 50 yards from the Braintree MBTA subway station and close to a highway. There are five other lodging establishments, all hotels, in Braintree-Candlewood Suites Extended Stay, Hampton Inn, Holiday Inn (now known as the Beantown Inn), and Hyatt (collectively, with the Motel, " the facilities"). The other facilities are not in the same proximity to the MBTA station. However, one of them, the Hyatt, is in close proximity to the South Shore Plaza, the second largest mall in New England, and is close to a highway.
In 2009, a woman was murdered at the Motel and her boyfriend committed suicide. In response, in May 2009, the Board notified G6 of a hearing to revoke the Motel's license, alleging four grounds: death on the premises; major calls requiring police assistance; disproportionate volume of calls for police assistance; and insufficient supervision or inadequate management. As a result of the hearing, G6 made two commitments to the Board in a December 15, 2010 letter-first, " we agreed to implement a number of security measures to address specific concerns" of the Board, and second, " we agreed to conduct a substantive renovation of the property."
G6 noted that both commitments were timely met. The Motel implemented new practices, including a nightly police detail and a nightly review of the guest registry by the Braintree Police Department. For a period of time in and after 2009, the Motel hired armed security guards, but at some point before 2017, that measure was ended.
The Motel's license was renewed. G6 claimed that " substantial improvement" in conditions at the Motel were reflected in the reduced number of " calls for service" to the police[2] and that " we virtually eliminated any true crime and activity at the property" in compliance with the commitments G6 had made to the Board.
However, despite the measures put in place, G6 was unable to stop criminal activity from increasing at the Motel after 2009, and from experiencing more such activity than any other facility. In April 2017, the Braintree Police Department made suggestions to the Motel for enhancing safety and security at the Motel-by requesting guests checking in to provide the number and names of those checking, obtaining license information so that the Braintree police could run checks for warrants, and preventing recurring rentals to people who have posed problems for the police. There was no evidence that G6 took these steps. Aside from that request, there was no evidence that G6 failed to take any other steps requested by the Braintree Police Department.
On May 5, 2017 (" the May 5 Incident"), Braintree police officers went to Motel 6 to serve a warrant on a guest in one of Motel 6's rooms. Without provocation, the guest shot a police officer in the head. The other officers returned fire. The gunman then barricaded himself in the room. Several SWAT teams responded to the Motel. Streets near the Motel were shut down, as was the nearby MBTA station. An armored vehicle was positioned in front of the gunman's room for protection, and the approximately sixty Motel guests were evacuated. After efforts to contact the gunman were unsuccessful, police used another armored vehicle to breach the door to the gunman's room. Police officers entered the room and found the gunman dead. The stand-off, which lasted approximately four hours, interfered with the public health, safety or public peace in Braintree.
At the Hearing, the Braintree Police Department presented evidence comparing the Motel, with 92 rooms, with the five other facilities which collectively had 738 rooms. Even though the Motel had implemented steps to control criminal activity after 2009, the data showed that from 2010 through 2017, the number of police responses to, or incidents occurring within, the Motel was higher than at any of the other facilities. For instance, violent crime incidents, which included instances in which warrants were executed, [3] rose at the Motel from 18 incidents in 2010, to 121 in 2015, with a slight decrease to 114 in 2016.[4] The next highest number of such incidents at the other hotels was 18 at the Hyatt in 2015 and 14 at Candlewood in 2016.[5] From January 1, 2017 to May 14, 2017, there were 164 incidents at the Motel, twice the number at the Hyatt, 8 times the number at Extended Stay and Candlewood, and 18 times the number at Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn.[6] The majority of overdoses that occurred at the facilities from 2014 to 2016 occurred at the Motel. In total, there were more than 25 overdoses at the Motel. In 2014, there were 9 overdoses at all facilities, 8 of them at the Motel; in 2015, a total of 7 at all facilities, with 4 at the Motel; in 2016, a total of 15 at all facilities, with 12 at the Motel, and in 2017, a total of 7, with 5 at the Motel.
In the aftermath of the May 5 Incident, G6 met with the Mayor and Police Chief on May 11. The Mayor suggested a temporary shutdown or redevelopment of the Motel property. The Acting Police Chief suggested a total teardown of the property. G6 conceded that they had " dropped the ball, " were " surprised at how high the numbers were" (presumably reflecting criminal activity), and that G6 " want[s] to fix it." G6 suggested further changes to change the Motel's clientele[7] and enhance security, including expanding desk check-in controls and policies, implementing a no-cash payment policy and adding supplemental services. The Acting Chief noted that a credit-card only policy would leave patrons with cash without a place to stay, and that they would seek refuge in the Braintree Police Department lobby during inclement weather, as had happened regularly in the past and which posed an unmanageable burden on the Department.
For the three weeks until the Motel was voluntarily closed on June 1, G6 began using some of the new steps, including the credit-card only policy, informing guests at check-in of the Motel's cooperation with the Braintree Police Department, using Braintree Police Department officers as a detail seven nights a week, requiring all guests and visitors to present government-issued photo identifications at check in, and prohibiting non-guest visiting after 10 PM. During that period, there were 15 calls for service to the police and one overdose. G6 understood that guests coming from shelters were a main generator of calls for service and resulted in a " tremendous number" of ambulance calls. G6 claimed it had addressed this issue since the May 5 Incident with the credit card only policy. Prior to the May 5 Incident, G6 did not decline to take any additional security steps that the Braintree Police Department had requested and was not told by the police that its security protocols were insufficient.
G6 claimed that it faced crime generators that other facilities did not,...
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