A “rush of panic and anxiety” came over Janine Andrews on Saturday when she saw a Facebook post saying that Pierce County had closed the Gateway Inn, the closest hotel to the Nisqually entrance at Mount Rainier National Park.
The 56-year-old from Rhode Island had planned the trip with her husband in March and had booked a room at the Gateway Inn, which touts its location just 50 feet from the park entrance. The couple try to hit a new national park every year, and this year they’d chosen Mount Rainier.
As they double-checked their plans, Andrews saw the post that showed an orange sign on the door of the inn’s office reading “DANGER, DO NOT ENTER OR OCCUPY.”
Pierce County marked the Gateway Inn as “Unsafe and Do Not Occupy” on Aug. 5, ordering everyone on the property to leave immediately, after determining that the business had continued renting rooms even though the hotel had unresolved safety violations, county spokesperson Christina Rohila said in an email.
The county had posted the Gateway Inn for closure in February after inspections found serious hazards including “dangerous electrical conditions, non‑working smoke detectors, unsafe exits, chimney problems that created smoke and carbon‑monoxide risks, and unpermitted construction,” Rohila said.
But inspectors noticed that the inn had started renting out rooms again this summer, Rohila said.
During another round of inspections recently, the county found that those violations had not been corrected and the hazards still existed, Rohila said. Inspectors also found that enforcement notices they’d posted in February had been removed.
Utilities were disconnected at the inn, and the hotel is not allowed to reopen “until all the life-safety violations are corrected, required permits are issued, all inspections are completed, and Pierce County authorizes the property for occupancy,” Rohila said.
Staff at the Gateway Inn did not respond to multiple requests for comment. The business’ website makes no mention of the closure.
Andrews immediately called hotels.com, the booking site through which she’d reserved her accommodations at the Gateway Inn, and asked if the site knew about the inn’s closure. She said the site told her it hadn’t and couldn’t reach the inn’s staff either.
She was able to find another room at the Packwood Lodge on the same days, Friday through Sunday, for only $20 more per night. She was able to get a refund from hotels.com.
Even though it’s a little less than an hour from Ashford, where the Gateway Inn is, Packwood Lodge general manager Lisa Colb said the lodge has had a handful of Gateway Inn guests turn to them for a room.
Andrews thought her whole trip was ruined, that all the time and money she spent planning had been wasted. But she said, “I was shocked that we were able to remedy everything.”
And given all the safety violations she read about at the Gateway Inn, she said, “I think we got saved at the end of the day.”
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