Wellington City Council votes to call the Beehive Retreat Center a lodging house
by Devin McCue, Sumner Newscow — The Wellington City Council met on Tuesday and further discussed the fire code at a Wellington business.
Last week, the Council held a work session concerning 704 N. Washington, the former Hawks/Shelley Funeral Home. The property has been recently converted to a quilting retreat for the Beehive Quilt Shop.
At the session, the City explained that they reached out to the State Fire Marshal as well as other Kansas communities with retreats like this and all said the same thing: it needs to have a sprinkler system.
The issue is less about the number of guests and the type of business and more about the transient nature of the guests and the owner’s relationship to the property. In order to be legally considered a lodging house (and avoid paying the hefty fee of installing a sprinkler system) the owner would be required to occupy the house whenever guests rented rooms.
There were additional requirements necessary to satisfy the fire code, but this was the principal step required to move ahead.
Wellington Council member Rick Roitman vehemently disagreed with the City and State Fire Marshal’s analysis.
Roitman argued that there wasn’t any difference between a retreat center and an Airbnb and forcing one to adhere to a separate fire code than the other wasn’t fair. He went on to say that the owner’s initial information brought to the City to make their decision wasn’t correct so making assumptions based on that created a moot point.
City Attorney Shawn DeJarnett disagreed.
DeJarnett said that changing the names of properties to avoid safety regulations doesn’t change the nature of the buildings themselves. Whether or not you call the retreat a lodging house or a retreat center, it’s still a fire hazard to repeatedly let guests unfamiliar with the property stay for short periods of time.
The fear is, the City of Wellington could be put in a vulnerable legal position in case a tragedy occurs. For example, jut this year a $9.3 million verdict went against Austin Energy and others in relation to an electrocution death at a construction site in 2009. This is a situation the city of Wellington would like to avoid.
Roitman, however, to recognize the property as a lodging house and not require the owner to install a sprinkler system anyway. Councilman Kevin Dodds made the motion and the vote passed unanimously.
With the controversial part of the meeting over and done with, the Council passed two resolutions before adjourning.
•The first allows the City to move forward in a USDA grant application. USDA will agree to pay 15 percent of a $170,000 purchase for eight storm sirens. The rest of the ticket price will come out of reserved portions of the American Rescue Plan Act, funds.
The resolution passed unanimously without discussion.
•Speaking of the American Rescue Plan Act, the second resolution updated who would oversee the distribution of those funds. Last July, the City employed a firm named SJHL to advise and assist in best using the ARPA funds.
Now, one of the partners has exited the firm to go into private practice so the Council needed to amend the previous resolution. They did so unanimously.
The meeting adjourned after one hour.
