What will happen with the Capri Motor Inn?

Many West Hempstead residents say the Capri Motor Inn has been a nuisance for years. At a special board meeting on Aug. 31, the Town of Hempstead began a public hearing to determine whether the motel, on Hempstead Turnpike, fits the legal definition of a public nuisance. If it does, the Town Board may close it for up to a year.

Roughly 30 residents and public officials attended the meeting, and expressed their support for the Capri’s closure.

“We will not stand for our neighborhood to be overrun by crime and inappropriate businesses,” Maureen Greenberg, president of the West Hempstead Community Support Association, said. “Shut it down. Keep it shut.”

The Capri was closed after an Aug. 7 inspection by the Nassau County fire marshal revealed several safety violations. The closing was independent of the motel’s reputation for criminal activity. But during the hearing, Inspector James Crawford of the Nassau County Police Department revealed that police have had to respond to calls at the property 597 times in just the past two years.

In the past year alone, police have made 89 arrests at the motel. Crawford said the arrests have been for attempted murder, assault, gun possession, drug possession, prostitution, and sexual conduct against a minor. He also said there have been 10 undetermined deaths at the Capri.

“This establishment has placed an undue burden on the community and first responders, exposing the community to crime and tying up valuable police, fire and EMS resources,” Crawford said, adding that the motel has been a problem for all of his 18 years with the NCPD. “On behalf of the police department, and the community we happily serve, it’s in everyone’s best interest this motel remains closed.”

The law states that a business can be legally deemed a public nuisance if two “predicate offenses” are alleged by police, and result in arrests, within the space of a year. A predicate offense can be related to drugs, prostitution, unlawfully dealing with a child, or other illicit activities.

The first such offense at the Capri occurred on July 24, when police arrested a woman and charged her with prostitution. The second took place on Aug. 1, and involved two women buying what police believed to be crack cocaine from a man. When the man was apprehended, officers found 55 bags of the substance in his possession.

Jeffrey Schrieber, an attorney for the owners of the motel, raised some concerns. Under the law, the Town of Hempstead must give notice of a public hearing “not less than 10 days prior to the hearing.” The town gave notice on Aug. 22, nine days before the hearing. Further, Schrieber said, anyone arrested is presumed innocent until proven guilty, so it can’t be assumed that a crime took place there.

“What you’ve set up is a paradigm under which anyone that the town decides they don’t like can be shut down for a period of up to a year,” Schrieber told council members.

He was told he would be given the opportunity to speak again during the next meeting, which was scheduled for Wednesday, after the Herald went to press.

At last week’s hearing, members of the public spoke out in support of closing the Capri. Greenberg gave the board a petition with 757 signatures as well as 12 letters from residents, all in favor of keeping the motel closed. The Community Support Association’s executive board, she said, had unanimously voted that the Capri should be permanently closed.

“I have been avoiding the Capri Motel for my 37 years,” said Moshe Hill, who was born and raised in West Hempstead and is raising his children here.

Hill said that when he was a teenager, he and his friends would ride their bikes to the Blockbuster that used to be next to the motel. “It was literally one of the only places in West Hempstead where I had to lock up my bicycle as a teenager,” Hill recalled.

“I hope the council finds that this place should stay closed for as long as the law allows,” he added.

Timothy Shanley, who said he had lived in West Hempstead for 60 years, and close to the motel for 30, told the board that his children were never allowed to play in the front yard. The family had to lock their car every night, or it would be broken into. They stopped buying gas at the nearby Speedway, because people would beg for money, and sometimes things would “get nasty and violent,” Shanley said.

“I think the best thing is that the Capri is never opened again, and we find something else that can actually support the neighborhood instead of hindering it,” he said.

Town Supervisor Don Clavin encouraged anyone who could not attend Wednesday’s continuation of the hearing to send emails to be made part of the record.