The Regional District of Nanaimo has declared the Cassidy Inn Hotel building a hazardous property and ordered the owner demolish it by June 8.
The regional district board gave the building the designation at its May 24 board meeting and a staff report said complaints have been lodged for a number of years. The building, on 2954 Canyon Rd. just north of Nanaimo Airport, is dilapidated with evidence of squatters and a fire risk.
Nanaimo RCMP’s Sgt. Rob Jones said police have received numerous complaints and officers have said it’s dangerous.
“The most recent file we had ... was a bunch of youth went into the building insecure on Friday [May 13] because they heard it was haunted. They wanted to do a Friday the 13th thing, so they’re crashing around there. There’s needles, there’s broken glass, holes in the floor, this is at dark.
“As far as I understand, there’s no light in there whatsoever,” said Jones at the meeting.
Manno Pawar, the owner, told the board that he was only made aware of the situation less than three weeks ago. He said he addressed some of the issues on the May 23 long weekend, boarding up sections on the main level and removing graffiti.
When asked what plans he had for the site, Pawar said he would like to possibly use it for retail.
The News Bulletin reached out to Pawar for further comment, but he has not responded.
If Pawar does not comply, the regional district will undertake the work and bill Pawar. However, Pawar does have the option of appealing, said Tom Armet, regional district building and bylaw services manager.
“The property owner has the right, under the community charter, to ask the board for reconsideration of their decision and he has a right to do that within 14 days of the order being granted, so we don’t know yet whether the property owner will come back to the board in 14 days and ask for the reconsideration of that order,” Armet told the News Bulletin, adding nothing will happen to the building for the next couple of weeks at least.
Armet said the regional district has not been able to determine the exact age of the building, but estimates it was built before 1910.