Nassau lawmakers seek to fight sex trafficking by restricting hourly hotel, motel rooms

Nassau lawmakers introduced a bill on Monday to combat sex trafficking by limiting hourly bookings at hotels and motels, mirroring a similar measure in neighboring Suffolk County.

If the bill passes later this month, it will be illegal for hotels and motels to rent out rooms for fewer than eight hours at a time. The goal is to “make Nassau County less attractive” to sex traffickers who use hourly rooms as convenient, low-cost hubs to traffic victims, according to the bill.

“When you rent a hotel room by the hour, nothing good can happen,” Nassau Legis. Michael Giangregorio (R-Merrick), who introduced the bill, told Newsday. “A lot of these hotel/motels are in residential areas near schools. This is not good for the public.”

If passed, the law would only apply to rooms with sleeping accommodations, not to conference room or bridal suite rentals, for example, Giangregorio added.

The new bill, which passed unanimously through the Public Safety Committee, also requires hotels and motels to document and keep the names, addresses and photo IDs of people who book rooms for five years so law enforcement can investigate potential crimes. Operators will also be required to keep security footage for at least 90 days.

Operators who violate the law would be slapped with fines ranging from $500 to $1,000, or up to $2,000 and $5,000 for repeat offenders. Suffolk legislators passed a similar bill last year, with repeat offenders facing higher fines ranging from $3,000 to $10,000.

Long Island’s hotels and motels are rampant hubs of sex trafficking, with hundreds of sex ads posted each day driving clients to high-end establishments or seedy motor inns. A Newsday investigation last year uncovered nearly 60 hotels and motels across Long Island where police made arrests for sex trafficking or prostitution, including one case involving an 11-year-old girl.

At least 17% of the hotel cases reviewed by Newsday involved child victims.

Sex ads play a large role in sustaining business for sex traffickers. During one 2½-hour stretch on a Wednesday in November, sex ads were placed in at least 19 communities in Nassau, Newsday reported. Westbury had the most sex ads in the county that morning.

Under Nassau’s proposed bill, hotel and motel operators would be required to train new employees within 60 days about how to recognize signs of human trafficking.

But court records show that some motel owners are complicit in the crimes. In one case, a husband and wife in their 70s who owned a Suffolk motor lodge warned traffickers when police were nearby, even selling Trojan Magnum condoms for $1 at the front desk, Newsday reported.

Part of what makes Long Island attractive for sex traffickers is cheaper motel rooms than in New York City, according to law enforcement. Suffolk County Det. Matthew Skulavic testified in court last year that traffickers can rent a local room for about $100 a day, compared with $200 to $300 in Brooklyn. The result is a profit of up to $2,000 each day, according to former Suffolk sex crimes prosecutor Anne Oh.

"It happens at every hotel," Christine Guida, deputy bureau chief of the Nassau district attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, previously told Newsday. "It happens at the high-end hotels where you’re blocking off rooms for weddings and you’re putting your family up for holidays when they come to visit you. It’s happening at the hourly motor lodges and hotels. But it is happening everywhere."