Nearby: Long Beach Motor Inn Cited for Senior Housing

Nassau County may either buy or condemn the Long Beach Motor Inn in order to prevent the Island Park lodge from reopening after it was closed due to damages during Hurricane Sandy, County Executive Ed Mangano said Sunday.

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The county executive was joined by local, town and state officials, including former Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, joined with about 75 protesters in a parking lot adjacent to the motel, at 3915 Austin Blvd., who once again called for closing the motel permanently, saying it has housed homeless tenants and convicted criminals for years. Mangano said the county and the motel’s owner are in negotiations, which he characterized as productive, but if necessary the county would condemn the building, according to Newsday.

The county said in a statement that Mangano has directed the county attorney to proceed with plans to obtain the property and to negotiate an inter-municipal agreement with the Town of Hempstead for redevelopment of the site, as well as the adjacent vacant property of the former Ruby Tuesday restaurant, possibly to construct senior housing.

“The Long Beach Motor Inn and surrounding property have long stood in the way of community redevelopment and will be replaced so that we can truly make Island Park a better place to live, work and raise a family,” Mangano said in a statement.

Theresa Balsamo of the Island Park Civic Association told Newsday:

"The people that have been staying there are definitely not beneficial to the surrounding area.”

In August 2012, Alphonso Barnes, 57, was convicted of raping a woman in Long Beach while he was using county housing vouchers to live at the motel in 2009.

The troubles at the 67-room motor inn on Austin Boulevard, which has been the site of many protests by residents who opposed the county’s use of it to house homeless people and convicted criminals, started in earnest in 2006, about a year after the Oceanside Motel on Long Beach Road was condemned and demolished. Neighbors at that time expressed concern that motor inn would come to mimic the Oceanside Motel, which housed homeless families as well as sex offenders and drug users and dealers. At the time, Nassau County’s Department of Social Services had dramatically increased the number of families it has placed at the motor inn, from three in 2005 to 22 by October 2006. 

The motel owner at the time, Charlie Goldgrub, said that social services officials regularly solicited him to house people at his motel. “The numbers fluctuate,” he said when asked about the violations. “... Most people who come here are nice people, and as long as they abide by our rules, we don’t discriminate.”

At the time Anthony Tascarella, a Jamaica Avenue resident for 38 years, had a “For sale” sign posted outside his home located across the street from the motel. “It’s a hell hole,” he said about the lodge. “This was a quiet neighborhood. Not anymore.”