Crime falls at row of Portage hotels
Police have increased patrols, worked with management from businesses
After a surge in crime centered on three hotels on Melton Road peaked over the summer, Portage Police Chief Michael Candiano said an assortment of measures by police and city officials have cut that crime considerably.
Additional patrols, working with hotel management and assistance from the Porter County Multi Enforcement Group all have played a role, Candiano said, adding that a restructured nuisance ordinance passed by the city council in August has yet to be put into play but is there if police need it.
Police calls to the hotels in question, Candiano said, dropped from an average of 68 per month to 21 per month.
Yet Republican John Cannon, who previously was Portage’s interim mayor for nine months in 2019 after former Mayor James Snyder was removed from office after conviction in federal court on public corruption and other charges, claims city officials aren’t doing enough to tackle crime at the hotels.
Cannon, a former member of the city council, is again running for mayor as he did four years ago, when he lost to Democrat Sue Lynch in the general election.
“I don’t know how the crime stats are counted when it comes to crime being up or down at the hotels,” Cannon said, responding to questions about a campaign missive he sent out earlier this month claiming “inaction” by the Lynch administration was putting first responders at risk.
Candiano, Lynch said, knows the city administration has concerns about the hotels, and also that those concerns are being addressed.
“We’ve done everything we can,”
she said, adding that’s included working with other agencies and making sure officers have new equipment, including body and dashboard cameras.
As far as the hotels, from Jan. 1, 2021, through June 13, 2022, the Days Inn had 350 police calls; the Portage Inn had 369 calls; and the Travel Inn logged 445 calls, for a total of 1,164 calls for service. The city’s remaining eight hotels had a total of 471 calls during that time, according to statistics compiled by Candiano.
Police were handling an average of 68 hotel calls per month at those hotels during those 18 months.
Candiano recently pulled up to date statistics and found police handled 130 calls at the three hotels over the past six months, for an average of 21 a month.
“I think it’s just the fact that we started being there all the time and got the help of the drug unit,” Candiano said. “Hotels are hotels. People are in and out, and some people are using them as a permanent residence.”
Cannon said “multiple” people, including police, visitors from out of town and truck drivers who regularly stay in Portage, have complained about what’s going on at the hotels.
He said it’s “not about police” but a lack of support from the city administration.
“We did not have this problem as bad when I was there for nine months,” Cannon said, adding he didn’t have crime statistics to back up his claim but he went on ridealongs with police at the time. “The things we saw and proactive things we did made it better.”
Cannon, in his news release, makes an assortment of recommendations on how he would handle the situation if elected as mayor. Several of them, including an ordinance to hold hotel owners responsible and upping police presence at the hotels, are already in place in some fashion.
In addition to new equipment, Lynch said police are getting better training and now have five police dogs at their disposal. The agency, she added, is “far more responsive” than it has been in the past.
“I think we have one of the best police departments we’ve ever had,” she said.
Portage police officials and hotel representatives from two of the three hotels that had the most calls said over the summer that the low cost of rooms at the businesses contributed to the problem.
Still, Candiano said police haven’t busted as many parties at the hotels as they did last year and communication with hotel staff continues, including when a manager needs police assistance for a customer who didn’t pay their tab or needs to be removed from the property.
“It had been really bad there for a while,” Candiano said.
If warmer weather and an influx of visitors again brings an influx of crime, Candiano said police will use the nuisance calls ordinance, among other resources, to get the situation back under control.