photo by: Photo by Derek Redd

Wheeling City Council is discussing labeling Wheeling Inn a public nuisance.

WHEELING — The city of Wheeling moved forward with action this past week to declare the Wheeling Inn a public nuisance — a substantial measure that is not commonly utilized but has been proven to be successful on a handful of occasions over the last two decades in the city.

A report detailing an array of service calls and criminal complaints over the past three years on or near the property at the Wheeling Inn — also known as the Knights Inn of Wheeling at 949 Main St. — was the driving factor behind the public nuisance action. A majority of council members voted last Tuesday to accept the city’s manager’s recommendation to abate the nuisance.

The hotel is now prohibited from conducting business at the property pending a public hearing which has been scheduled to take place at 11 a.m. on June 9 in city council chambers.

While the Wheeling Inn is the first hotel in the city to be subject to this action, the process has been used on four separate occasions in Wheeling since the current public nuisance ordinance was put in place in 2003. Public nuisance declarations have been leveled in the past against four Wheeling establishments – all of them bars: The Coconut Club on Wheeling Island, Bud’s Club in Center Wheeling, the Batting Cage in Warwood and the American Legion Post 89 in East Wheeling.

“This is something we take very seriously,” Herron said Friday. “We recognize the ramifications of it, and it’s not something that I take lightly as city manager, because it’s ultimately my recommendation to city council, under the code.”

Herron has served as city manager through all of the previous public nuisance actions. There have been a few other properties where public nuisance action was being considered because of criminal activity at establishments, ranging from from a suspected house of prostitution, the site of a major drug task force investigation and the scene of a fatal shooting. But those locations – The Green Door in Center Wheeling, Stormin’ Norman’s in Elm Grove and Mac’s Club in Edgwood — ceased to operate before action proceeded.

For the business locations that have been declared a public nuisance, they were all closed as the process moved forward, Herron noted.

“Every single one had been closed prior to the public hearing,” Herron said. “All of them came from recommendations from the police department, with fire department code violations and some other issues included. But the goal is to stop the illegal activity that is affecting the community as a whole and the neighborhood around it.

“It has had some success, although there have only been a few cases.”

Once action deems a property a public nuisance — and after the public hearing is held and any appeals process has run its course, the public nuisance remains attached to that particular use at the property — regardless of whether or not ownership changes hands. Some have remained closed, while others have been transformed into reputable establishments.

“At the Coconut Club, there was significant criminal activity occurring at that bar, and that culminated in a series of serious events,” the city manager recalled. “That prompted the police department at the time to recommend that it be declared a nuisance. City council agreed with that declaration, and it was closed down.”

The Coconut Club never reopened — in fact it has been razed. But the property at Bud’s Club in Centre Market did reopen. It was closed, the criminal activity had ceased, and after some time, a new owner acquired the property.

“The new owner presented a plan to city council to reopen it,” Herron said. “They performed a significant renovation, they restricted their hours and they completely changed the complexion of that establishment. City council allowed them to reopen in accordance with their proposal, which was restrictive. For example, I think they originally had to close at 9 p.m.”

That new owner operated there for a while before selling it to They operated it for a while, then sold it to Greg and Diane Myers, who today operate both Casa de Vino and Market Vines.

“Now it’s one of our premier establishments in Centre Market,” Herron said. “That started with a declaration of public nuisance. The Legion was also a success story. There’s no doubt about that. But it was closed, and they had to completely change management out.”

Establishments that presented proposals to council and were able to successfully have a location emerge from the stain of a public nuisance declaration did so through completely different business models, the city manager noted.

The former Batting Cage location today remains vacant in Warwood.

“Nobody has approached the city about reestablishing it,” Herron said.

There is no mechanism in the public nuisance ordinance to take over the property, despite public suggestions to do so in the case of the Wheeling Inn.

Through the process, the property owner is given an opportunity to respond. There also is an appeal process. If the property owner disagrees with the city council’s decision, they have the ability to appeal that the circuit court.

“It’s not a short-term solution, but we’ve had success through this process before,” Herron said, who acknowledged that the city has had discussions with the Wheeling Inn’s ownership. However, city leaders have declined to comment too much on the matter since it is still pending the public hearing. “Obviously we’re hopeful, and we want the issue to be resolved. We want the nuisance to go away, and that’s our goal here — to abate a nuisance, however that may happen.”

Regardless of whether or not the property is declared a permanent public nuisance following the public hearing, something is expected to be done at the property where – aside from the activity listed in the police reports – the condition of the facility has been declining from its original vibrancy from many decades ago. Meanwhile, millions of dollars in public and private investments have been taking place all around the Wheeling Inn.

Anand Patel, manager at the Wheeling Inn, this past week noted that rumors that a recent offer had been made to purchase the hotel were simply false.

“In 2019, Wheeling Heritage reached out to me to discuss their vision to construct the Wheeling Area Heritage Museum at 10^th and Main Street at the site of the Wheeling Inn, and in July of that year, Wheeling Heritage and Nalini LLC (owners of the Wheeling Inn) entered into a one-year option agreement for Wheeling Heritage to purchase the Wheeling Inn parcel,” Patel noted. “By entering into an option agreement, Wheeling Heritage had site control, which allowed them to fundraise or pursue other funding options.”

However in 2020, Patel said he was informed by their then executive director that Wheeling Heritage was unsuccessful in moving forward with their proposal. The venture was again explored in early 2021, but the Wheeling Police Department’s undercover sting known as Operation Knighthawk took place later that year, leading to multiple arrests. Patel said he had heard from Wheeling Heritage in November to reaffirm interest in selling the property, but as of this spring, he had not heard from them and was under the assumption that they had not been approved of grant funding to proceed.

Homeless individuals that had been staying at the Wheeling Inn have been relocated, officials said, and staff members at the hotel have been permitted to remain on site, although the business at this point has been temporarily closed pending the outcome of the public hearing.

“As unfortunate as this process is to go through, I believe that at the end of the day, it has been successful in this community, and we’re hopeful that it will be successful this time as well,” Herron said.