DUBUQUE, Iowa (IOWA CAPITAL DISPATCH) – Dubuque city officials say they’re not ready to pursue any penalties against a hotel repeatedly cited for dozens of health-and-safety violations.
Since January, city inspectors have visited the 98-year-old Canfield Hotel, 36 W. 4th St., on at least three occasions and have cited the business for more than two dozen regulatory violations, including bed bugs, cockroaches and hallways strewn with garbage.
The most recent inspection was March 18, when the hotel was cited for many of the same violations found earlier in the year, including worn carpet, damaged walls, broken window glass, dirty bathrooms, peeling paint and several areas that were in need of a “thorough cleaning.”
City inspector Tim Link said this week that the owners are making progress coming into compliance with state law but more remains to be done.
City of Dubuque Public Health Director Mary Rose Corrigan said that while the citations for the violations carry no fines or penalties, the city, in conjunction with the Iowa Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing, does have the power to pursue simple-misdemeanor criminal charges.
“We’re not ready to impose that at this point because our goal is compliance,” she said. “It’s not necessary to be punitive. We want to get the problems corrected and since the hotel is making progress we’re going to keep working with them.”
City Attorney Crenna Brumwell said Thursday there have not been any fire-code inspections at the Canfield Hotel in 2024 or 2025. She said the fire department indicated the building was last inspected for fire-safety violations in July 2023 – seven weeks after city health officials approved the owners’ application for a hotel license.
In 2021, a Dubuque woman who had lived at the hotel for close to three months was charged with felony first-degree arson after telling police she had set fire to her divorce papers inside the hotel. Police alleged that when officers asked Crystal Farrell whether she had planned to set fire to the building with its other 37 tenants still inside, she replied, “Sure.” She was later sentenced to one year in a residential facility and five years of probation.
In 1946, a fire at the Canfield Hotel killed 19 people, making it one of the deadliest fires in Iowa history.
City assessment records indicate the 54-unit hotel was built in 1927. It was purchased in June 2023 by Krupa LLC, a company that is managed by Mihir Patel. Since 2023, when Patel took over the hotel, the net assessed value of the property has dropped from $923,700 to $717,700.
In 2022, the Iowa Capital Dispatch reported that the Department of Inspections, Appeals and Licensing acknowledged that for the previous eight years, it had violated a law requiring the routine inspection of Iowa’s hotels and motels.
By law, the agency had been required to inspect all hotels within its jurisdiction at least once every two years. The department was instead conducting preopening inspections and complaint investigations, and any others were based on an agency risk assessment.
Last year, the Iowa Legislature approved, and the governor signed into law, legislation that codified the department’s long-standing practice. The bill repealed the requirement for biennial inspections.
Under current law, Iowa’s hotel and motel inspections are to be conducted “upon receipt of a verified complaint signed by a guest of a hotel.”
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