Fox Lake officials to consider future of controversial Marina Motel

The days may be numbered for the troubled Marina Motel in Fox Lake.

Village officials are scheduled to meet Thursday morning and decide whether to officially strip the controversial Route 12 motel of its business license once and for all because of ongoing problems.

Police Chief Mike Behan said the motel continues to be a nuisance because the owners still have not curtailed the gangs, drugs and violence that occur at the building. He added that it's time for the business to close.

“We warned them that the problems need to stop last year, and it hasn't,” Behan said. “So, we are taking the next step to make the problems stop once and for all.”

Calls to the Marina Motel were not returned Tuesday.

This is the third time the motel has been under fire from the village in the last three years.

The motel was shuttered between October 2009 and March 2010 due to numerous building code violations that were found after police discovered a disabled man living in squalor. Motel owner Joseph Wulf worked through the building code violations and was allowed to reopen in 2010.

In 2011, numerous emergency 9-1-1 calls resulted in Behan forcing Wulf to sign the “Crime Free Act”. The act states that caretakers of the motel must work with police to keep the motel crime and nuisance free.

However, since owners signed the crime free act in July, the Fox Lake Police Department has received 89 calls for crimes including drugs, domestic battery and underage drinking parties, Behan said.

The 89 calls recorded from the Marina in the last nine months is down from the previous year, he said, but it is double the number of complaints received from the two other motels in town.

“It's also more than any bar or restaurant in town,” he said. “All the calls we are getting are issues that should be watched by the motel owner or management, but aren't.”

Behan said the license hearing will be in front of Mayor Ed Bender, who will decide whether the business license should be revoked.

“The calls have definitely decreased, but 89 calls in nine months is still way too many for any one business,” he said. “It's time for this problem to end before someone gets hurt.”