The City of Atlantic City is looking to shut down 1401 Memorial, a rooming house between Tennessee and New York Avenues, just around the corner from the Oasis needle exchange.
The Director of Licensing and Inspections for Atlantic City, Dale Finch, said the city notified the property’s owner that its license would not be renewed. The matter was currently in litigation, he said.
Finch told the Boardwalk Committee a few weeks ago (October 10) that the city was working with CRDA to buy out 12 rooming houses around town. The state Department of Community Affairs’ website listed 55 of them in the city, per Route 40’s unofficial count. Finch put the number in the mid-40s.
He said CRDA has committed funds to the project, per the Boardwalk Committee’s notes. But he wouldn’t give us details.
A 1988 ordinance defines a boarding house as someplace meals and lodging are provided for more than three people (up to 15) who are not transients, versus motels, whose customers are transients. Some properties people think of as rooming houses–the Fox Manor for instance–were in fact not officially classified that way.
Finch said motel owners don’t have an obligation to assist the people living in them with relocation when they’re shut down. With the rooming houses, there is an obligation.
A call to the CRDA spokesperson wasn’t immediately returned. A call to 1401 went to voicemail with a full inbox.