Overview:
• The former hotel is near the Crown Coliseum
• The sheriff cited drug use, overdose deaths, prostitution, shootings, homicides
• The hotel property to be razed by Dec. 18
• The owners agreed to tear it down
For years, the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office has said, the Coliseum Inn on Gillespie Street was a nexus of criminal activity.
This activity included prostitution, human trafficking, the illicit sale and use of drugs, drug overdoses and deaths, shootings, illegal gambling, stabbings, assaults, fights, and at least two homicides, according to a lawsuit the Sheriff’s Office filed against the motel owners in May 2023. Another homicide was reported in 2024.
On Tuesday, Senior Resident Superior Court Judge Jim Ammons ordered the owners of the Coliseum Inn tear it down no later than Dec. 18. The order follows a court order that Ammons issued in June 2023 that declared the property had become a public nuisance.
“The demolition of the Coliseum Inn represents a significant step toward enhancing the safety and security of our community,” Sheriff Johnathan Morgan said in a news release on Wednesday.
The former hotel is on Gillespie Street at East Mountain Drive, near the Crown Coliseum and across from the Cumberland County Schools Central Services office.
The June 2023 order, which the hotel owners agreed to, told the owners to shut down the hotel. The order said the hotel could not reopen again as a place of public accommodation until it was sold to a buyer that the sheriff approved of.
Since then, according to a motion that County Attorney Rick Moorefield filed in April this year, the owners have let the property fall into disrepair and it was in violation of Ammons’ June 2023 order to stop being a public nuisance. Moorefield asked for a court order to tell the owners to secure the property or demolish it.
“The buildings on the subject property formerly run as the Coliseum Inn are in disrepair and are unsecure,” Moorefield wrote. Most if not all of the doors had been removed and one of the buildings had been partly demolished, he said.
“Based upon information and belief, trespassers frequent the property, and rubbish and garbage are on the property,” he wrote.
The property belongs to Raj Laxmi Hospitality LLC of High Point, county property records say. In addition to that company, the defendants are Kumudchandra Shah, Sonal Shah, Chaitali N. Sheth, Sanatkumar D. Naik and a company called Savita of Fayetteville Inc.
Savita owned the property from June 1997 to December 2022, when Raj Laxmi Hospitality bought it, court documents say.
Savita’s lawyer, Jonathan Strange of Fayetteville, filed a motion on Aug. 6 saying that Savita would tear down the hotel, and asked for Ammons to issue the order so Savita could do it.
Strange could not be reached for comment on Thursday. Fayetteville lawyer Jonathan Charleston, who represents Raj Laxmi Hospitality, declined to comment.
The sheriff said the demolition will help the area.
“I stand firmly with the survivors of human trafficking and substance abuse, the Bel-Air community, the 301 Corridor, and all those who were adversely affected by the criminal activities linked to this property,” he said. “Working together, we create positive change.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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