ORDINANCE NO. 348
AN ORDINANCE LICENSING, REGULATING PUBLIC HOTELS, ROOMING HOUSES, LODGING HOUSES, WITHIN THE CITY OF GRAND JUNCTION AND DEFINING WHAT ARE PUBLIC HOTELS, ROOMING HOUSES, LODGING HOUSES WITHIN THE MEANING OF THIS ORDINANCE.
BE IT ORDAINED BY THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF GRAND JUNCTION, COLORADO:
Section 1. That no person shall conduct, keep, manage, operate or cause to be conducted, kept, managed or operated either as owner, lessor, lessee, agent or attorney, any hotel, rooming house, or lodging house, as herein defined within the corporate limits of the City of Grand Junction, without first having obtained a license therefor from the City Clerk of the City of Grand Junction.
Section 2. A public hotel, rooming house, or lodging house for the purpose of this ordinance, is defined to be any building, tent, structure or place where roomers or lodgers are received and housed or kept by the day, night, week, month or year for hire or compensation, and to which the general public is received, and where such hotel, house, room, tent, structure or place has two or more beds for use or hire to the general public.
Section 3. For the purpose of this ordinance the word "person" shall mean and include natural persons, co-partnerships, corporations and association, and shall include persons of both sexes.
Section 4. For each license issued for the running, operating or conducting of a hotel, lodging house, or rooming house under this ordinance the person securing such license shall pay to the City Treasurer the license fee therefor as in this section specified and such payments shall be made before any license is issued. The license fee to be paid in each case is as follows: For hotels, rooming houses, or lodging houses having not less than two nor more than ten beds, $2.50 per year; for hotels, rooming houses, or lodging houses having more than ten beds, the sum of $10.00 per year. All said licenses shall be issued annually and shall expire December 31st of each year, and all licenses under this ordinance shall be applied for as in this ordinance prescribed.
Section 5. Any person desiring a license to keep, conduct or operate within the City of Grand Junction, any hotel, rooming house, or lodging house, must file an application therefor in writing with the City Clerk, and shall state in such application the correct and true name, or names, of the person, persons, co-partnership, association or corporation, who is or are to keep, operate, or conduct, such hotel, rooming house, or lodging house, as well as the name of the person who is to be the manager, officer, agent or other person who will have charge and management of such hotel, rooming house, or lodging house; the location of same; the number of rooms and beds in such place that are to be or shall be kept or used for let, hire, or compensation to the public: and shall in such application state the last place of residence of the applicant; and if prior thereto applicant had been engaged in business of keeping a hotel, rooming house or lodging house, state where the same was kept, and shall furnish references by giving the names of at least three persons acquainted with the applicant and shall furnish such other information as may be required by the Council. Such application shall be submitted by the City Clerk to the City Council at its next meeting thereafter and the same may be passed upon at such meeting or continued for further investigation; however, each application shall be passed upon by the Council and either granted or rejected within a reasonable time after the same is presented to the Council.
Section 6. Whenever any license applied for under the terms of this ordinance shall be granted, the City Clerk's minutes shall be made to show the fact, and thereafter upon the presentation to the City Clerk of the receipt from the City Treasurer for the amount of the license fee prescribed, the City Clerk shall issue a license for the balance of the then current year expiring on December 31st of said current year.
Section 7. The City Council shall have the right at its discretion to refuse to grand a license under this ordinance to any person, persons, co-partnership, association or corporations when the Council has reason to believe the applicant will not conduct the hotel, rooming house, or lodging house, for which a license is sought, in accordance with the ordinance of the City of Grand Junction, or of the laws of the State of Colorado or of the United States, or to any person or persons, who is or are notorious violators of any of the ordinances of said City or of the laws of the United States or of the State of Colorado.
Section 8. Upon complaint being made in writing to the Council by any resident or inhabitant of the City of Grand Junction or any police or other officer of said City, or of any officer of the State of Colorado or of the United States, that any person, persons, copartnership, corporation or association, who is operating or conducting within the City of Grand Junction any hotel, rooming house, or lodging house under a license issued under this or any other ordinances of the City of Grand Junction, is conducting or permitting to be conducted such place in violation of this ordinance, or in a disorderly or disreputable manner, or in such manner as to violate any City ordinances or State or Federal Laws concerning the keeping of a disorderly house, brothel, bawdy house or house of ill fame, or is or are keeping for sale or disposal therein any intoxicating malt, vinous or spirituous liquors, or is or are permitting, or is or are allowing the use or the keeping therein of any intoxicating liquors of any kind, or is or are allowing to be kept therein any intoxicating liquors, or is or are permitting or allowing any gambling or gaming in any such hotel, rooming house, or lodging house, the Council, after a reasonable notice to the person holding such license, or to the manager or person in charge of such hotel, rooming house, or lodging house, of a hearing thereon, and a hearing had in such manner as the Council shall direct, may order said license to be revoked, if at such hearing it is disclosed that said charge or charges are true.
Section 9. No person to whom a license shall be issued as provided in this ordinance shall suffer or permit the hotel, rooming house, or lodging house to which such license relates to be used as a house of ill fame, brothel, bawdy house or disorderly house or for the purpose of prostitution, fornication or lewdness; or suffer any lascivious cohabitation, adultery, fornication or other immoral practice to be carried on therein; or to suffer or permit or have therein any intoxicating liquors; or suffer or permit the use, possession, or keeping therein, or the sale therein, of any intoxicating liquor.
Section 10. Every person to whom a license shall have been issued to conduct a hotel, rooming house, or lodging house shall at all times keep a daily standard hotel register in which shall be inscribed the names of all guests or persons renting or occupying rooms in such house, which register shall be signed by the person renting a room or rooms or by someone under his direction. Such registrations must be made and after the name or names so inscribed or registered the manager of the house or his agent, shall write the number of the room or rooms which such guest or person is to occupy, together with the time when such room is rented. All of which shall be done before such person is permitted to occupy such room or rooms. Such register shall be at all times open to inspection by any guest of the house wherein such register is kept and to any peace officer of the City of Grand Junction.
Section 11. It shall be unlawful for any person to write or cause to be written in any hotel register in the City of Grand Junction any other or different name than the true name of such person, or the name by which the person is generally known.
Section 12. No rooms shall be assigned to two persons of opposite sex, except in the case of children accompanied by parent or guardian, unless such persons shall be registered as husband and wife.
Section 13. Each and every license issued under the provisions of this ordinance shall be issued to and accepted by the person, persons, copartnership, association or corporation to whom the same is issued upon and subject to the following conditions, to-wit: That any police officer of the City of Grand Junction may, when he has reason to know or believe that any such hotel, rooming house or lodging house, for which a license has been issued under this ordinance, is at the time violating any of the provisions of this ordinance or permitting a violation thereof, enter such hotel, rooming house, or lodging house, or any room therein for the purpose of arresting any person or persons who may be violating any provisions of this ordinance, and may without warrant arrest any such violators and take possession of any intoxicating liquor, thing, substance, material, or appliance used, had, or kept therein in violation of this ordinance, and such police officer shall at once file written charges against such person or persons in or about any such person or persons in or about any such hotel, rooming house or lodging house, who are therein found to be violating or permitting the violation of any of the provisions of this ordinance.
Section 14. Each and every person who shall be operating or conducting any hotel, rooming house, or lodging house within the meaning of this ordinance at the time such ordinance goes into effect, shall within thirty days thereafter apply for a license to conduct such hotel, rooming house or lodging house as herein provided, and the Council shall, as soon as it can conveniently do so, pass upon such application.
Section 15. No license issued as in this ordinance provided, shall be transferred or assigned unless the Council, in its discretion, authorizes the transferring or assignment of such license to any particular person or persons.
Section 16. Where a license shall have been issued to any co-partnership, corporation or association to conduct a hotel, rooming house or lodging house, any person having charge, management or control of such hotel, rooming house or lodging house shall be liable to prosecution for any violation of this ordinance.
Section 17. For the purpose of determining the liability of any person or persons, to prosecution for any violation of the provisions of this ordinance, it shall be sufficient to show that such person was at the time of the act of violation complained of, the person in charge, control, or management of the house in which such act was alleged to have been committed.
Section 18. It shall be the duty of every person to whom a license is issued, as provided in this ordinance, to display such license in a conspicuous manner in the office of the hotel, rooming house or lodging house to which said license relates.
Section 19. Any person who shall violate any provisions of this ordinance, upon the conviction thereof in the municipal court of the City of Grand Junction, shall be punished by a fine not to exceed $150.00 or by an imprisonment in the City Jail for a period not exceeding 90 days, or by both such fine and imprisonment, and it is further provided that upon conviction of any person, having a license under this ordinance, for operating or conducting any such licensed hotel, rooming house or lodging house in a notorious violation of any of the provisions of this ordinance, the municipal court, in its discretion, may revoke such license.
Passed and adopted this 30th day of January A.D. 1924.
/s/ W.G. Hirons
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President of Council
ATTEST:
/s/ Fred A. Peck
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City Clerk
I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing ordinance was introduced and read at a regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Grand Junction, Colorado held on the 16th day of January A.D. 1924 and was ordered published in the Daily Sentinel, a daily newspaper in general circulation in said city, at least ten days before its passage.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF I have set my hand and affixed the official seal of said city this 31st day of January A.D. 1924.
/s/ Fred A. Peck
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City Clerk.