05-07-2007 Luecke: Wooden Indian will ‘conform or cease to exist’

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0�SOUTH 4 � N U d ranee � ,a 1865 Office of the Mayor NEWS RELEASE May 7, 2007 3:OOpm Luecke: Wooden Indian will `conform or cease to exist' Contact: Chuck Leone, City Attorney, 574-235-9241 Mikki Dobski, Director of Communications &Special Projects, 235-5855 or 876-1564 Saying he has zero tolerance for any business that endangers the public or police, Mayor Stephen J. Luecke announced today that the city is actively pursuing all options to restrict, eliminate or acquire public-nuisance properties like the Wooden Indian Motel. The Wooden Indian, 1631 Lincolnway East, was the site April 24 of a fatal shooting of South Bend Police Corporal Nick Polizzotto. The mayor said that the city will begin by creating new comprehensive regulations governing "residence hotels," in which patrons reside for 30 days or more. This will allow the city to tighten regulations to ensure that police, fire inspectors and code enforcement personnel have the most modern regulative tools at their disposal. Simultaneously, the city is exploring"all options" regarding the future of the Wooden Indian property, Luecke said, adding that city officials will be meeting, this week, with private parties, public officials and the owner, Ronald E. Koehler. "The Wooden Indian and nuisance properties like it will conform to more rigorous community standards or they will cease to exist," Luecke said. "No civic-minded business owner need be concerned. But as owners of properties like the Bull's Eye learned in the past, when we set our sights on a nuisance property we have the will to act to transform that location." After neighborhood concerns about continuing problems with criminal activity, Bull's Eye Discount Liquors, along Lincolnway West, was acquired by the city and demolished in September 2000 to make room for a new Teachers Credit Union bank branch. -more-