Back in April, Shirley and Daryl JenkinS, an elderly couple from Washington state, died in their room at the Best Western Plus Blue Ridge Plaza in Boone, North Carolina. The cause? Carbon monoxide poisoning. Earlier this month, Jeffrey Williams, an 11-year-old boy from South Carolina staying in the very same room, also died from CO poisoning. Well, now we know that all three deaths were the result of a criminal act. Yesterday, Boone town inspectors told the Charlotte Observer that the source of the massive CO leak was a malfunctioning indoor pool heater. Even worse, the hotel never got a permit to install the heater.
Todd Miller, an inspector for the Boone Planning and Inspections Department, said Best Western Blue Ridge Plaza representatives never told the city about the new heater or applied for a permit, which is required under the state building code.
“The pool heater that we found installed had been manufactured in 2006, and we have no record of Best Western applying for or receiving a permit to change that heater out,” Miller said.
Miller said the town would have issued a permit only to properly licensed individuals.
The heater was located one floor below the room where Jeffrey and the Jenkinses died, and two floors below where 10 girls were sickened at a sleepover party three days after the Jenkinses died. Watauga County health officials inspected the heater in March and
found serious deficiencies that the inspector said needed to be fixed immediately. Apparently said fixes never occurred, because the state had inspected the heater after Jeffrey's death and
found it had been improperly installed.
And now we find out that the hotel's operator, Appalachian Property Management, didn't even bother to get a permit for the heater. If this story could possibly get more hideous, it just did. This company was too damned cheap, lazy or both to get a simple permit for the heater and see that it was properly installed. And now, they may end up having to pay several times what it would have cost to get the proper permit and keep the heater in good repair. And not just in monetary terms either--by all rights, the owners of this company need to go to prison. This came to light less than 24 hours after the Williams laid Jeffrey to rest. Ten to one this announcement had an awful lot of people down their way hitting the ceiling.
This morning's edition of the local newspaper, the Watauga Democrat, reveals another dimension to this story. Bill Bailey, the director of the town planning and inspection department, thinks that the heater may have been moved in from another hotel--and originally intended as an outdoor heater.
The last time the Planning and Inspections Department inspected the facility was in March 2012, when the Best Western converted to natural gas service, Bailey said. As part of that inspection, the hotel's tankless water heaters, fireplaces and the pool water heater were checked.
"We have nothing in the file denoting any type of irregularity," he said.
Bailey said that since then -- from what his department was told -- a pool water heater was moved from the Sleep Inn's outdoor pool facility to the Best Western's indoor pool. He said outdoor pool heaters are typically more powerful than those for indoor pools. (emphasis mine)
The Sleep Inn is one of
four other hotels run by Appalachian Property Management. That company also runs a La Quinta, a Country Inn and Suites and a Super 8.
According to Bailey, the Best Western is currently closed. Appalachian Property Management will have to isolate the heater from the natural gas system before the hot water can be turned back on. However, he says that in all likelihood, when a hearing is held into the matter, Best Western will have the option of making repairs rather than having the hotel condemned.
I'm hoping that this went to press before it was confirmed that the heater was installed illegally in the first place. Given the circumstances, there is no defensible reason that any of these hotels need to stay open. From where I'm sitting, this company is a clear and present danger to the traveling public.
7:10 AM PT: Since this made the rec list, I think it's time to put a little pressure on the chains to yank the franchise agreements from Appalachian Property Management's hotels. Get ahold of Best Western here, Country inn and Suites here, Choice Hotels (owner of Sleep Inn) here, Super 8 here and La Quinta here.