Saskatoon Fire Dept. to close motel due to unsafe, unsanitary conditions

Saskatoon Fire Chief Morgan Hackl says a motel on Idywyld Drive that has had a long history of problems is to be closed down, displacing about 150 people.

In a release Wednesday, the fire department says it will be taking the unusual but necessary steps to consider an order to close all or a portion of the City Centre Inn and Suites due to unsafe and unsanitary living conditions.

City Centre Inn and Suites.
(Saskatoon Fire Dept./Submitted)

The notice is pending and is expected to be in effect at the latest by Thursday at 3 p.m.

In the release, Hackl says the law gives property owners and landlords many chances to do what’s right to ensure people have safe and healthy places to live.

“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 anyone to live there,” Hackl said in the release.

Hackl says the most recent visit to the motel revealed 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 and 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.

City Centre Inn and Suites.
(Saskatoon Fire Dept./Submitted)

The fire department says it and the Emergency Management Organization are working closely with community partners like the ministries of Health and Social Services, the Saskatchewan Health Authority, the Saskatoon Tribal Council, the Saskatoon Housing Initiative Partnership and AIDS Saskatoon to evacuate the roughly 150 residents, including three children, and to place them in safe, healthy accommodations.

The residents will be housed in a combination of hotels, shelters or housing units in the short term with the goal of getting everyone into long-term housing.

Each resident will also be screened for COVID-19 and helped with any other health-related issue they may have.

“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,” Hackl said. “Our focus, as always, is about community safety.”