SEL SAN FRANCISCO
CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
EST 1913
September 14, 2021
Mayor Mark Addiego
Vice Mayor Mark Nagales
Council Member Flor Nicholas
Council Member James Coleman
Council Member Eddie Flores
Dear Honorable Mayor and Council Members,
I am writing this letter in hopes for your support to consider purchasing Flock Safety automatic license plate recognition cameras to be installed at the exit / entrance ramps off 101 and 380 in our City.
As you are aware from reading the police blotters, hotels (and other businesses) have been faced with a profoundly serious problem with smash and grabs and vehicles stolen out of our parking lots. This issue has always been happening, however, during the pandemic and into the year 2021, this problem has shown an excessively large uptick. Hotels are already struggling to maintain business, increase occupancy and rates, which all result in more TOT for the City. Reports and statistics show that travelers are not yet back to the comfort of flying to a destination, but the business we have learned to become accustomed to are those travelling by automobile. It proves to be incredibly challenging to maintain this business when our guests' vehicles are continuously being broken into and/or stolen from our parking lots. It happens so often that hoteliers are defending themselves on social media when guests post negative comments about this problem for the world to see.
I personally have had to take on the expense of adding more exterior cameras at my hotel to help prevent these crimes and I know other hotels have done the same. The hotel community believes that if the City were to install these cameras, these potential criminals would soon find out about them and hopefully would prevent or slow down the amount of smash and grabs and stolen vehicles at our hotels.
The Hotel Community of South San Francisco is asking you to join other San Mateo County cities to help combat this crime in real-time. These cameras will give our Police Department the capacity to identify accurate and objective leads, assess crime hotspots, and not only solve, but prevent crime in our hotel parking lots and community.
Firstly, as General Manager of the Best Western Plus Grosvenor Hotel and also as President of the Board of Directors for the South San Francisco Chamber of Commerce, I, along with the other hoteliers listed below are asking for your consideration to install these Flock Safety license plate recognition (ALPR) to the entrances of our City.
Your consideration is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
Jim MeGuire
(President of the Board of Directors
Cc: City Manager Mike Futrell
1. AC Hotel Waterfront, Reggie Kumar - General Manager
2. Best Western Plus Grosvenor Hotel, Jim McGuire - General Manager
3. Park Pointe Hotel, Andre Kim - General Manager
4. Comfort Inn & Suites, Tonette Tamayo - General Manager
5. Days Inn Airport North, Kunal Patel - General Manager
6. Doubletree Hotel, Erick Binauhan - General Manager
7. Hampton Inn, BJ Patel - Owner
8. Holiday Inn Express, Sajeet Desai - Owner
9. Hotel Focus, Eric Halliday - General Manager
10. Home2 Suites, BJ Patel - Owner
11. LaQuinta Inn, Jeff MacDonald - General Manager
12. Larkspur Landing, Alma Thomas - General Manager
13. Ramada Limited Suites, Kunal Patel - General Manager
14. Sonesta Select & ES Suites, Tim Howard - General Manager
15. Travelodge, Neelam Desai - Owner