*** Cruising at ground zero: A night at the Welcome Inn ***

Wenatchee, Washington -- 05/04/2004
1:26 a.m. The inmates have taken over the asylum.

All night Saturday, groups of partiers crowded the walkways
in front of the rooms at Welcome Inn. At 232 N. Wenatchee Ave.,
the budget motel is at ground zero of the Apple Blossom Festival
cruising scene.

Finally, manager Jay Verma had enough. With a hired security
guard at his side, he stormed up to the second floor to lay down
the law to a particularly rowdy bunch.

But when Verma demanded about 10 people leave the walkway,
the partiers - drinks and Swisher Sweet cigars in hand - loudly refused.

As Verma and the guard retreated to the office, they were followed by
a barrage of taunts and insults.

Minutes later, eight women filed into their room.
The door slammed.

With thousands of people pouring into town, Apple Blossom
weekend is a major moneymaker for hotel owners. Budget hotels
charge as much as $150 for a double room - up to five times their
regular rates.

But hotels along the Wenatchee Avenue have gained a reputation
with law enforcement as breeding grounds for fights and raucous
parties, including drug use and underage drinking. This year
Wenatchee police tried to step up security.

Before the festival, they met with managers and gave tips on
how to keep control, like putting up barriers to parking lots,
hiring extra security and kicking out troublemakers.

Wenatchee police Sgt. John Kruse said Sunday morning that
security had improved as a result of the campaign. While noting
that smaller motels have limited resources for security, he said,
"Overall things went pretty good."

Owners and managers at three budget motels along the avenue
- Economy Inn, Holiday Lodge and Welcome Inn - said the same.
They said this year's crowds were smaller and quieter, and claimed
there was no damage to their rooms and very little trouble with guests.

Balbir Singh, owner of Holiday Lodge, said he had one fight on
the premises, and that a guest pushed him down after he kicked
one roomful of guests out for being too loud. Otherwise, he said,
things were calm.

At Welcome Inn, Verma said when the partiers on the walkway
disobeyed him, he and the security guard were simply overwhelmed
by their numbers. He insisted he kept control at the motel and there
were no problems.

But first-hand encounters Saturday night, when reporters from
The Wenatchee World stayed at Welcome Inn, told a different story.
What follows is an account of what happened there, as crowds and
cars streamed by out front on Wenatchee Avenue.

The party started at 4 p.m., as guests gathered on the walkway to
drink and mingle with people from other rooms. The smell of marijuana
was a constant presence.

Robert Tate, 22, of Tacoma, said it was his third year at the
Welcome Inn. "This is where it's at, dawg, because everybody
ends up here. They're gonna come to you," he said.

Most of the guests were from Western Washington, between 18
and 22. Many of them - men and women alike - said they come to
Apple Blossom for one reason: sex.Sipping a Budweiser, Scott
Sweeney, 19, of Sedro-Woolley, said he came to the festival to
meet women and have sex. He came with eight friends
- all planned to sleep in room 261.

A few doors down, Antonio Escobar, 21, of Bellingham, was
hanging out with three high-school girls from Chelan. The girl he
liked told him she was 15.

"If she's 15, I'm 17," Escobar said with a laugh, putting
his arm around her and offering her a drink.

Jesse Almeida was the hotel's main security guard.
A nursing assistant by day, he said he took the job for
the weekend to make a little extra money.

Almeida usually had one or two other guards to back him up.
But on Saturday night, he said the woman working with him
was too afraid of the guests to do anything.

"It's just me," he admitted.

As the night wore on, Almeida took on a harried look, and
increasingly relied on police to break up large groups in the
walkways and the parking lot.

Many of the partiers were not registered guests, but people invited
in off the street. Almeida said it was the manager's job to keep them
off the property, but that nothing was being done.

Verma said he put up crowd-control tape and parked a truck
to serve as barriers, but had no way of controlling who came
on the property.

11:03 p.m. Cries for help came from Sallieu Sesli, 20, of Tacoma.
He was on his hands and knees at the edge of the second-story
walkway, vomiting onto the cars below. The door to his room was
ajar, with empty liquor bottles strewn across the table inside.

Moaning, Sesli pointed to a bloody, raised bump on the back of
his head and asked for an ambulance. He said he'd been pushed
out of a car. Police and medics arrived in minutes and took him away.

12:46 a.m. Escobar and two of his male friends were dancing in the
back of a pickup with the three girls from Chelan. The music pounded
across the parking lot, and people on the walkways cheered and lifted
their drinks. Wenatchee police approached the truck and asked the
dancers not to drink. The party went on after they left.

2:02 a.m. East Wenatchee police Det. Darin Darnell and two other
officers took a turn along the walkway. Partiers slithered into rooms
as they approached, but the police nabbed a group of underage
drinkers outside room 260.

"Here's the deal," Darnell said, pointing to the liquor bottles
in the room. "Either you dump it, or you're going to jail."

When one girl asked Darnell why he picked Welcome Inn to patrol,
he said, "you know, I just felt this urge to walk up here. I don't know
why."

Smelling marijuana smoke from the room next door,
Darnell told one of the officers to call in a K9 drug-dog unit.
It never came.

3:32 a.m. More than 30 people were gathered in the parking lot
as music pumped out of an SUV. Above on the walkway, dozens
were drinking and chatting, kissing and dancing, while empty liquor
bottles overflowed from a big garbage can.

Then nine officers and a German shepherd walked into the parking lot.
The music died, and people quickly scattered to the street or into
rooms.

"I think that dog's gonna go nuts,"
said Cort Michells, 19, of Seattle.

But the police soon left, and the party revved up again until
Sgt. Kruse and others arrived at 4:09 a.m. and ordered everyone
into their rooms for the night.

Kruse said it was the fourth hotel in a row he'd shut down.

In an interview Sunday afternoon, Verma said people come to
Apple Blossom to have a harmless good time, and it's no
different at his hotel.

"We didn't start this festival. I can't shut down this festival.
I can't keep people from staying at my hotel," he said.

CC - http://www.wenworld.com

Geneb...Wenatchee,Washington-USA
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