Hearings will decide fate of Lynbrook Capri Motor Inn

Police detail history of crime at longtime neighborhood nuisance

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During the first of two scheduled public hearings to decide whether the owners of the Capri Lynbrook Motor Inn should have their room rental license revoked, Lynbrook Police Deputy Chief Ronald Fleury detailed the history of crimes that have occurred at or around the motel.

Fleury said last week that in early 2015, he attended a meeting between Lynbrook Mayor Bill Hendrick and representatives of the Capri, which is owned by seven people with varying shares in the motel. The parties agreed to hire a security guard, which they hoped would curtail a decade-long crime spree of drug deals and prostitution. Over time, Fleury recalled, Lynbrook police noticed that the security guard was not stationed at the motel as often as he should be and, eventually, he was not present at all.

“We were back to where we were before the security guard was there,” Fleury testified, noting that police saw prostitutes on the second-floor balcony and “johns” in their cars waiting for them. He recalled that the police also noticed vehicles idling next to each other, in apparent drug deals.


The Capri has been under surveillance since 2009, when the village board increased police patrols in the area and installed seven cameras in the motel parking lot. Over the last few years, however, Lynbrook police have arrested several people near the motel on charges of assault, prostitution and drug possession, Fleury said. There have also been three deaths from overdoses at the hotel, two in 2015 and one in 2016.

Last September, Hendrick announced that he was forming a committee to determine the fate of the Capri. The group comprises Deputy Mayor Alan Beach and Village Trustees Hilary Becker and Ann Marie Reardon.

The first hearing took place on March 16, and lasted about four hours. In addition to Fleury’s testimony, Village attorney Peter Ledwith said that 38 arrests have occurred at or near the motel since 2014.

Lawyers defending the three Capri owners who attended the hearing argued that the arrests made near the motel might not be connected to the Capri. “There are no notations on here as to which of these are guests and which of them are not, or if any of them are guests,” Jonathan Edelstein, an attorney representing the motel, said, referring to the list of arrests.

But Fleury did not change his testimony. He said that he assumed that anyone who was arrested at 5 Freer St. was a hotel guest. Edelstein responded that they could be trespassers. He also noted that idle cars could have been picking up someone at the motel. Fleury said that if there were trespassers, it was suspicious that the motel didn’t alert the authorities.

Finally, Edelstein argued that the criminal activities could have occurred out of the range of the surveillance cameras that a front-desk employee watched. He said they could have happened behind the entrance or in private rooms, where no employee could see the illegal activity. “With the camera system you’ve got there, I’m not so sure,” Fleury rebutted.

Joe Pizzuto, the Capri’s manager, denied any criminal activity. “There’s no prostitution there,” he said. “There’s nothing going on ... It’s maybe just a building that [the village doesn’t] want there.”

If the village committee were to revoke the hotel’s license, the owners could appeal the decision to the Lynbrook Zoning Board of Appeals. If that decision were upheld, they could take the case to the Nassau County Supreme Court.

The second hearing is scheduled for March 23 at 10 a.m.