There’s so much activity going on at The California Inn, Deluxe Inn, and Driftwood Inn; right outside of Modesto. Women are on display standing outside their rented rooms; while men pull up and go in for 10 to 15 minutes.
The man, who says he’s the owner of The California Inn, didn’t come out and blatantly say sex is being sold at his location. He did say deputies have come to his motel for other issues.
Owner: The cops come. I’m saying I’ve never had any doors kicked in.
FOX40: You’ve never had doors kicked in?
Owner: I’ve had drug guys come here before.
FOX40: Drug guys?
We sat down with Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson to ask him why the motels on South Ninth St. aren’t being held responsible.
“The owners of the motels on South Ninth St. are culpable and we have put them on notice, our goal is to put them out of business,” Christianson said.
911 calls do pour in to county dispatch from the three motels. It takes a lot of time and, the sheriff says, even more resources.
“We respond there frequently to all three of the motels for drugs and a lot of narcotics overdoses,” he said.
The Sheriff says there are no plans to make a bust or conduct a sting, because of resources.
“We lost 27 percent of our deputy-coroners because of the economy,” Christianson told FOX40.
In 2011, FOX40 was there during one of those stings. Several prostitutes were rounded up and 26 men buying sex were arrested. Two years later, the prostitution is back.
The sheriff says he wishes he could hire more deputies to combat crime in Stanislaus County. He adds for now, he has a plan in place to deal with the prostitution problem.
“We are collecting information that ultimately will go to the courts to say, ‘enough is enough’ to put the motels out of business,” Christianson said.
Until then, the prostitutes will be right on South Ninth St. outside of Modesto, selling sex and deputies aren’t stopping them.