Augusta hotels want help with guests who overstay welcome
AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) - For a number of Augusta Commission meetings, representatives from hotels in Augusta have been voicing their complaints about guests overstaying their welcome, and the need for the city to step in.
We’re talking about people who’ve been living in these hotels for weeks or months without paying.
They say for the past two to three years it’s been an issue of calling the sheriff’s office and not being able to have guests that turn into tenants removed immediately.
Some examples include guests ing their kids for school at these locations, or even ing to vote.
The issue came to a head on Thursday with different departments.
This is where they want the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office to have a bit more teeth in removing these guests.
When Sheriff Richard Roundtree came to the commission a few weeks ago, he itted the current ordinance was old and had trouble defining how his department could act without overstepping its boundaries.
The meeting started with a lot of confusion.
A Richmond County Sheriff’s Office deputy said their office is more than willing to respond to any calls despite the sheriff himself previously stating the current ordinance needed more teeth.
After the back and forth, the deputy said he was only called to represent the office 10 minutes before the meeting kicked off.
Commissioner Sean Frantom weighed in: “Frustrated, we’ve heard two different things, three different times.”
Andy Sharma, owner of the Candlewood Suites, said: “We’ve been asking for this for a year and now we’re hearing it from someone that was asked to come to this meeting 10 minutes before.”
Regardless, hotel owners want more direct help managing their guests.
“We need to go to the Marshal’s Department, to fill out an eviction and remove them from the premises, which what it does for us is: it costs us money every day that that 30–45-day process takes place, plus filing fees, plus an attorney. So, a hotel owner could be out $4-5,000 before you remove a guest,” said Sharma.
And it’s not just them.
“We had a guest that was in a room for 12 years. It was disgusting. I haven’t seen the pictures, but I hope to see them in the future, but it was a deplorable situation,” said Frantom.
Commissioners are now going back to the sheriff’s office to see if this is an issue on creating a new ordinance or if they just need municipal .
Augusta’s legal team also originally said it’s time for an update, but went back on their previous statement on Thursday saying current state laws keep the authority in the sheriff’s office’s court.
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