Fire Department to order closure of North Downtown motel
The Saskatoon Fire Department has taken the unusual but necessary steps to consider an order to close all or a portion of the City Centre Inn and Suites because of unsafe and unsanitary living conditions; the notice is pending and expected to be in effect at the latest by 3 p.m. Thursday, July 23.
“The law gives property owners and landlords many chances to do what’s right to ensure people have safe, healthy places to live.” says Saskatoon Fire Chief Morgan Hackl.
“However, this property has had a lengthy history with our department. Following repeated inspections, orders to remedy issues, and tickets, the conditions have degraded to such a deplorable state the Fire Department can no longer allow people to live there.”
Chief Hackl says the most recent visit to 610 Idylwyld Drive North which involved four Fire Inspectors revealed an immediate hazard with issues such as:
- unsafe and unsanitary conditions
- locked exit doors
- stairs at risk of collapse
- combustible material too close to buildings
- inaccessible fire extinguishers
- too few and uninspected extinguishers
- improper smoke alarm records
- failure to maintain fire alarm systems
The owner of the City Centre Inn and Suites has been ordered to remedy 34 deficiencies under the Property Maintenance and Nuisance Abatement Bylaw; and 27 deficiencies under the National Fire Code of Canada.
The Fire Department and Emergency Management Organization has been working closely with its community partners including the Ministries of Health and Social Services, the Saskatchewan Health Authority, the Saskatoon Tribal Council, Saskatoon Housing Initiative Partnership and AIDS Saskatoon to relocate roughly 150 residents, including three children, and to place them in safe, healthy accommodations.
Going door-to-door – and working in teams – fire officials today are informing residents of the pending closure and that other housing will be available for them based on each resident’s health-care or personal needs. Residents will be housed in a combination of hotels, shelters or housing units in the short-term with the goal to place these residents in long-term housing. Tomorrow, Thursday July 23rd, teams of fire, health and housing workers will meet with each resident to establish housing plans for each resident. Each resident will also be screened for COVID-19 and assisted with any other health-related issues.
For now and until residents can be relocated, a private security firm will be on fire watch duty, should there be a need to call firefighters for an emergent incident.
“We adopted a community approach to this issue, to make sure that taking action on a serious problem was going to have the least impact as possible on every resident involved,” Chief Hackl says. “Our focus, as always, is about community safety.”