City officials say utilities will be cut at Serena Inn
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on August 24, 2016 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Ashton Langston, who works for Quality Fire Extinguishers, recharges eight fire extinguishers at the Serena Inn Tuesday after residents of the hotel pulled pins on the fire extinguishers and released the powder inside of the canister.
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News-Argus/SETH COMBS
Five Goldsboro police cars are parked Tuesday outside the Serena Inn on Corporate Drive. The police were present as a precautionary measure to curb any negative reaction to the notification that the Serena Inn power and water supplies will be cut by the end of the week.
Goldsboro fire and building inspectors notified owners of the Serena Inn around 3 p.m. Tuesday that the hotel would have its water and power supply cut off by the end of the week until further notice due to fire code and life safety violations.
This means the hotel, located at 708 Corporate Drive, will shut down by the end of the week and remain closed until those code violations are corrected.
Peter Patel, manager of the Serena Inn, said he felt like the hotel would be able to reopen within two weeks after the power and water is cut off at the end of the week.
"We're going to try and open it back up within not even two weeks probably, as soon as the problems are taken care of," Patel said.
Patel said his uncle owns the hotel, and was using a management company to manage the property. Patel blamed the management company for the decline in conditions at the hotel.
Roughly 150 people will be displaced when the water and power to the business is cut off at the end of the week.
"I've got 150 people here with kids, and it's hard to tell them to just get out," Patel said.
Patel said anyone renting a room at the Serena Inn would be given a full refund for what they had paid for their rooms so they could find somewhere else to live until the business is able to reopen in the future.
"We're going to give them their money back so they can go somewhere else," Patel said.
Goldsboro Fire Chief Gary Whaley said the order to cut the water and power to the business off came from himself and the city's chief building inspector.
"We went out there and did an initial inspection on August 10 and found several fire code and life safety violations. We gave them 10 days to correct the problems we found," Whaley said. "We went back out there today, which is 13 days later, and did another inspection, and the problems still had not been fixed."
Whaley said the water and power supply to the business would not be cut off immediately, but both would be terminated by the end of the week.
"We told them today we are proceeding to cut off their power and water by the end of the week to give them time to move their residents to another place," Whaley said.
Law enforcement was at the hotel Tuesday afternoon after the business was notified of the development to deter any negative reaction to the news.
Ashton Langston, who works for Quality Fire Extinguishers, had to recharge eight fire extinguishers at the hotel Tuesday on site because residents had pulled the pins on the extinguishers and let the powder inside loose after receiving the news.
Many residents said they did not know where they would go by the end of the week, but declined to provide their names.
"The violations had still not been corrected when we went out there today, so we were forced to shut down the business until the violations are corrected," Whaley said.