El Paso Mayor says city needs to change procedures following Gateway Hotel closure

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Paso Mayor Oscar Leeser acknowledged the city's shortfalls in handling the Gateway Hotel's closure in an interview with ABC-7 on Wednesday.

"We didn't drop the ball as far as following process and procedures, but we definitely dropped the ball by not changing our process and procedures so this would never happen," Leeser said.

"I talked to the city manager, and come October, we're going to have a presentation to city council that has a new ordinance and some new things that we're going to do to make sure to prevent this from ever happening again."

In a news conference last Thursday, officials with the City of El Paso called the situation a "learning opportunity."

The County of El Paso, meanwhile, used evidence that implies there was no oversight by the City of El Paso in how the Gateway Hotel managed to collect rent from residents for years while not having an occupancy permit.

In the lawsuit filed Aug. 27 against the Gateway's owner for a temporary injunction due to the hotel being a "common nuisance," the county included a copy of the hotel's occupancy permit that expired in 2018 and added that it could find no record of a current permit. The county attached as evidence to the lawsuit records of dozens of the nearly 700 phone calls to law enforcement since 2022 alleging criminal activity taking place at the hotel. The lawsuit also included statements from El Paso police officers who said they saw suspected Tren de Aragua gang members staying in the Gateway.

Sean Fischer visited his mother, a resident at the Gateway Hotel, multiple times over the past few years.

"It was pretty obvious it's kind of a deplorable state of condition and had been, at least for the three times I had visited there," Fischer told ABC-7.

A nonprofit organization member assisted Fischer's mother in finding a temporary place to live when residents were forced to move out of the hotel after the county's lawsuit went public. Fischer says she was "bewildered" when she was told she would have to leave the hotel in just a few days.

"She was told to evacuate her room just with a change of clothes, toiletries, maybe some cash and I.D. and she was to be brought to a homeless shelter," Fischer said. "She was not homeless up until that moment."

When asked if he expects any further steps to help displaced residents, Leeser said the city will continue to "work with" residents through the Office of Emergency Management.