NCJ Number
179753
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 47 Issue: 10 Dated: October 1999 Pages: 137-140
Date Published
1999
Length
4 pages
Annotation
Police and hotel managers in Sandy City, Utah, have cooperated to prevent the establishment of clandestine laboratories for producing methamphetamine in hotels in the city.
Abstract
Sandy City is a rapidly growing city with 95,000 residents and 8 hotels and is located 18 miles south of Salt Lake City. Police discovered that individuals staying in hotels around the city's indoor malls were committing drug-related crimes. Police approached hotel managers individually and explained that criminals were setting up clandestine laboratories in their hotels. Managers understood the benefits of cooperation to prevent the direct and indirect liability that a hotel could incur from a lab on the premises. Agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) conducted training for hotel employees, emphasized that they should leave a lab as they found it, showed slides, described the results of lab explosions, and discussed the cost of decontaminating the rebuilding the hotel rooms. DEA agents profiled a typical local meth cook as a male, white, trashy looking, with rotting teeth and possibly open wounds and sores. They noted that the average lab in Utah can be transported in a suitcase or briefcase. The police officers have received an average of three calls a week since the training. The hotels have taken several actions to recognize and respond to clues about a potential lab. The police have found several partially assembled labs or materials in boxes. However, hotel managers and police officers report that drug activity in the hotels is decreasing. Photograph