Wayne vote will force motel to close
Route 46 Quality Inn had frequent helaht, safety violations
By: Philip DeVencentis
NorthJersey.com
USA Today Network - New Jersey
WAYNE - A local motel will not be permitted to reopen in the new year[2026] after a task force uncovered egregious helaht and safety violations over several rounds of inspections, officials said.
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The looming shutdown of Quality Inn at 334 route 46 east will mark the second time in four years that it has been forced to close for substandard conditions.
..... It is also the culmination of a months-long crackdown on motor lodges that officials have targeted along state highways for being hotbeds of drug abuse and violent crime.
..... Action on a recommendation by Mayor Christopher Vergano, the Township Council on December 17 [2025] declined to renew an annual license that would have allowed the motel to continue operation. Seven more hotels , including three known to cases similar trouble, were approved to stay open.
..... Quality Inn is the only hotel that has failed to correct its repeated infractions,Vergano said.
..... "As I said to the owner, 'You're nothing more than a slumlord, and we're not going to tolerate this in Wayne,'" the mayor said, recalling their conversation. "That was months ago, and nothing changed to bring them into compliance."
..... The Quality Inn property owned by a limited liability company called Skips Hospitality. an attorney who represented the Wayne entity in multiple court cases, including in a civil proceeding stemming from the closing in December 2021, did not return a call placed to his Havckensack law office.
..... Tax records show that Skips Hospitality purchased the 4.3-acre property for $8.4 million in March 2018.
..... The township administration formed the task force in the spring [2025] to raid problem hotels on routes 23 and 46 and to document findings in a series of reports.
..... The group, led by Captain Robert Franco, and composed of construction code enforcers, teh fire marshal, health officers and the Police Department, also helped to draft an ordinance adopted in June, [2025] and amended in September, [2025] to impose strict regulations on hotels. In particular, the rules specify that hotel guest cannot rent the same rooms for more than 30 consecutive days, unless certain criteria are met. Hotel employees must wear ID badges and undergo background checks when a license is up for renewal.
..... Quality Inn was issued 17 summonses for breaking the ordinance since it was enacted, Vergano said.
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Behind each citation and helaht code violation are hours of police work - so far, Vergano said, patrol officers have responded to the motel 425 times this year [2025] on emergency calls.
..... But even alarming statistics do not tell the full truth, officials said.
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Franco described a few of the "skin-crawling" discoveries there, including a swimming pool whose surface was caked to such an extent with green algae that one could "walk across the water." Recently, he added, a motel guest bit a responding officer, who then had to be tested for blood-borne pathogens.
..... "When you have a hotel with cockroaches all over the place," Vergano said, "that's not public safety. That's not good public policy. If they;re in one room, you know they're going to run to the next."