Hotels in Erlanger are one step closer to being required to keep a registry of their guests after City Attorney Jack Gatlin brought the ordinance back to the table at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
The ordinance initially discussed last month addresses frequent property offenders, such as those evading warrants and sex offenders. Police Chief Kyle Radar said in the meeting the ordinance would help the city keep track of and build evidence against these tenants in hopes of making the city safer.
In its newest version, Gatlin said due process would be added to mitigate potential issues, such as hotel owners preventing police and fire officials from seeing the registry.
The ordinance was revised after reviewing a Supreme Court ruling for a similar ordinance in Los Angeles. In 2015, the Supreme Court struck down the Los Angeles ordinance because it allowed the police access to hotel registries without a warrant. However, in the last meeting, the council discussed keeping a record and recorded reason for checking the registries which would also mitigate the Supreme Court ruling from applying to the city of Erlanger’s ordinance.
Gatlin said the additional due process would move on to require an administrative warrant or even further due process, depending on the circumstances.
“This whole concept last month was [just] an idea,” Gatlin said. “[Tonight] I wanted to bring to you all an ordinance that we, as a city, it would be hard for us to violate constitutionally.”
Council member Tyson Hermes said he spoke to a local hotel owner who said the ordinance would be a headache for those who own multiple hotels. Hermes recommended that the council continuously bounce legislative ideas back and forth with the hotel owners to give them a say.
Without current plans for the ordinance’s next steps, council member Rebecca Reckers asked if the council planned to engage with hotel owners and operators. Currently, no one is rushing for any decision, so ultimately, the pacing and decisions moving forward are the council’s will, Gatlin said.
“If [we] are able to socialize conceptually with these community partners I think it would be helpful for our decision-making purposes to know where they stand in the conversation,” said Reckers.
Besides Reckers and Hermes, other council members also expressed that they would like the executive branch of the council to meet with local hotel owners and get their input before tabling the discussion again.