{"id":17837,"date":"2025-08-08T03:59:17","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/?p=17837"},"modified":"2025-08-08T03:59:17","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:59:17","slug":"owner-of-unlicensed-motels-still-operating-pleads-case-to-seaside-heights-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/2025\/08\/owner-of-unlicensed-motels-still-operating-pleads-case-to-seaside-heights-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Owner of Unlicensed Motels, Still Operating, Pleads Case to Seaside Heights Council"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Flamingo<\/a>

Flamingo Inn Motel, Seaside Heights, N.J. (Credit: Google Earth)<\/p><\/div>\n

The owner of two motels operating in Seaside Heights without licenses<\/a> \u2013 and despite a court order compelling them to cease operations \u2013 made a case through his attorney to the borough council this week stating the allegations against his establishments are routine issues any motel might deal with and not worthy of a license revocation.<\/p>\n

The borough has been in court on issues dating back to inspections from 2023 for numerous motels owned by Sandip Patel, of Old Bridge. This week\u2019s hearing before the mayor and council pertained specifically to the Flamingo Inn Motel and the Atlantic Inn Motel, and whether borough officials had collected enough evidence to warrant the denial of the mercantile licenses at each establishment. Both motels remain open despite having no mercantile licenses or certificates of occupancy, with room rates this week hovering around $75 per night.<\/p>\n

The borough code allows for those appealing license denials to take their case to the borough council. The hearing was presided-over by Borough Attorney Robin La Bue, who will now review the evidence and present potential legal options to the council as to how they may proceed.<\/p>\n

Borough officials have stated in numerous reports that Patel\u2019s establishments, which also include the Cloud 9 Motel and La Fontana Motel, have not complied with safety codes and have over-utilized borough services \u2013 especially police and EMS \u2013 by failing to vet tenants and maintaining an establishment that attracts crime and nuisance complaints.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur position is, based on the police complaints, they didn\u2019t remove the tenants or investigate or vet their tenants,\u201d said David Casadonte, special counsel for Seaside Heights in such matters, emphasizing that repeated calls to the motels zap police resources.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have five police officers on-scene, meaning those officers are not patrolling the streets of Seaside Heights,\u201d Casadonte said. \u201d They are there for an extended period of time and their body cams are rolling.\u201d<\/p>\n

Casadonte said the Flamingo Inn was the subject to 28 police reports and 19 code enforcement complaints over the last several months, and has not held a mercantile license since 2023.<\/p>\n

Attorney Mike Jacobus, representing Patel, argued that many of the code violations issued to the motels are due to the fact that they have no mercantile licenses, however the borough refuses to issue such licenses. In Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Jacobus lobbied the council to reverse the borough staff\u2019s decision to deny mercantile licenses.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy client is attempting to comply with the regulations and pay the fee,\u201d said Jacobus. \u201cThe borough seems to be working against the tide. We want to get our mercantile license, and for some reason the borough is resistant to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jacobus said a number of the calls to police were over mundane issues such as tenants becoming locked out of their rooms, disputes over payments and other civil matters. At least one of the reports, he said, had to do with a vehicle that was merely parked outside one of the motels.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are not repetitive, serious violations, especially for the size of the hotel,\u201d said Jacobus. \u201cThese are isolated incidents, we\u2019re talking about minor issues, and we\u2019re talking about the resulting impact on my client, which is the denial of a mercantile license.\u201d<\/p>\n

In court documents, however, borough officials have stated that the Atlantic Inn Motel, in particular, had 119 calls to police over the course of the past year and the Flamingo Inn Motel had 56 \u2013 and other problems existed on top of the calls for service.<\/p>\n

\u201cI personally visited the Atlantic Inn the week of June 23, 2025 and witnessed insects crawling all over the front desk,\u201d Borough Code Enforcement Officer Kenneth Roberts stated in the court filing.<\/p>\n

Casadonte said Patel has done nothing to \u201cmitigate\u201d the violations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this case, we don\u2019t think there\u2019s been any mitigation at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Though it was not brought up as part of the record Wednesday, Patel has argued through counsel in legal documents that he believes the borough is trying to shut down his motels so they can be redeveloped with higher-end properties.<\/p>\n

The borough council is expected to pass a resolution adopting a decision on the appeal of the mercantile license denial at their next meeting, scheduled for Aug. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The owner of two motels operating in Seaside Heights without licenses \u2013 and despite a court order compelling them to cease operations \u2013 made a case through his attorney to the borough council this week stating the allegations against his establishments are routine issues any motel might deal with and not worthy of a license […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[2924,1959,2923,1914,20],"class_list":["post-17837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seaside-government","category-seaside-heights","tag-atlantic-inn","tag-featured","tag-flamingo-inn","tag-mercantile-license","tag-seaside-heights-nj-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/flamingo_inn_motel-scaled-e1754625645362.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgsn9q-4DH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17837"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17844,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17837\/revisions\/17844"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/lavallette-seaside\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}