Palatine council approves new limits on hotel stays

Months after Palatine cracked down on a hotel officials say was plagued by drug dealing and prostitution, the village council went a step further Monday by placing new restrictions on hotel stays.

Included among several changes to the village’s zoning regulations is a new rule stating that a building “providing transient lodging accommodations” must limit stays to no longer than 30 consecutive days.

The move comes after village officials reached a settlement last year with the owner of the Red Roof Inn at 1200 N. Frontage Road, after the business was shut down following a pair of drug-related deaths and 65 calls for police services between Jan. 1 to March 22, 2023.

The agreement called for the hotel operator, Shashtri Hospitality, to surrender its business license until the lodge reopened under new management. The hotel has since reopened with Ohio-based J&P Hospitality Management Inc. leading the operation, Village Manager Reid Ottesen said.

“When we did the Red Roof Inn, one of the issues that had come up is that they would have some people that would try to stay longer than 30 days,” he said. “And we had references in our code to 30-day limits, but it wasn’t explicitly spelled out under that hotel language.”

An extended stay hotel, defined as a building having a full kitchen, would cap stays at 90 consecutive days.

The amendment regarding extended stays addressed a section of the code dating back to the 1960s, which had references to boarding houses and hotel apartments.