The vacant Slumber Lodge has taken another beating after vandals broke in and did extensive damage.
For almost three years the building’s windows and doors have been boarded up after the city ordered the owners to block access to the site.
There was also a small fire at one end of the building in June 2012.
“It’s been a problem with ongoing incidents,” Mayor Walt Cobb said Tuesday. “People have been getting in there and ripping off the plywood.”
City workers went in Monday to do some more boarding up and the bill will be sent to the owners, Cobb said.
“I had been been trying to work with the owners because I thought I had potential purchaser. But now I think the building is almost past the stage of being salvaged.”
The owner lives in the Lower Mainland, is in his 80s, and is turning the motel over to his children.
“Obviously they are a fairly wealthy family because the kids are not interested,” Cobb said. “The last time I talked with him he said they were off in Hawaii and didn’t really care and I’m in my 80s and not interested in starting to rebuild.”
The city will have to work with its bylaw enforcement office to see if the building can be condemned and maybe force the owner to rip it down, he added.
“It’s dangerous and someone’s going to get in there, start another fire and there’s going to be a real problem.”