The law asks business owners to help law enforcement in this regard, and asks from them a very low bar: not knowingly profiting from the illegal activity. This is not novel--the underlying principles of derivative liability date to the 17th century. Knowingly profiting from activity has always carried with it special responsibilities.

A motel is not like an ISP--the former has far more ability to control what happens on their premises. Indeed, at common law, inn keepers could be held liable for failing to secure their property resulting in theft or loss of a guest's belongings. Moreover, there is a big distinction, both in law and in common sense, between knowing in the abstract that your service is used for illegal activity, and knowing about specific illegal activity and turning a blind eye. E.g. if you sell a gun knowing the buyer intends to murder someone with it, you can be held liable as an accomplice!

Not knowing or profiting from illegal activity is such a nebulous claim that it can't be enforced except in the most extreme situations. All ISPs profit from illegal activity. The problem is identifying individual instances of it is nearly impossible. In the same way this motel owner had an impossible task of identifying drug users or other criminals without having any specific knowledge of criminal activity. I do not want to live in a society where business owners are empowered to deny service because someone "looks like" a drug user. I'll let you imagine all the myriad ways that can be abused.

Don't argue with a straw man. This is not a situation where the government was going after a business owner for not denying service to someone who "looks like" a drug user. This was a situation where drug dealers were openly operating out of the guy's motel rooms. Someone was running a goddamn meth lab out of one of the rooms.

If he was so "openly" operating, why didn't the police arrest him? If they did, then what's the problem? Did they expect the motel owner to turn them in sooner? What exactly is enough evidence to assume someone is running a drug dealing operation? Are they expected to take note of how many people come and go during a given day? Profile their behavior? These seems like unreasonable expectations of the owner to me.

Maintaining law and order in the community is not only the responsibility of the police. The police cannot be everywhere, all the time. They can piece together a picture of what's going on by interviewing nearby residents after the fact, but in these sorts of communities it can be months or years before the police become aware of such activity and address it. People in the community have to participate, and businesses have a special responsibility to make sure their property is not used for illegal activity.

Yes, a motel owner is supposed to be generally aware of how many people come and go during the day, what kind of people, etc. This is not a high expectation, and it's the price of living in civilized society.

I'm not sure what you're background is, but safe, civilized communities don't spring up like mushrooms in a damp field. That's not the nature of humanity. Cooperating with the police and actively taking steps to keep illegal activity in check is what separates good working class neighborhoods from the ghetto.

I don't disagree with any of that. But its not clear how we go from that to seizing and liquidating their property. Did law enforcement engage with them to see how they could work together to reduce crime? Somehow I doubt that.

First, you seem to have made yourself an expert on what this proprietor could and could not have done. That amuses me. You're making yourself into an apologist for a guy who profited from a business relationship with known drug dealers and pimps.

The owners of the motel are not limited by the constitution. The motel owner has been in business for a long time. You think he doesn't know drug activity when he sees it? He can and should refuse a room and ask offending or suspicious guests to leave. Of course, that would be bad for business. And that's why we're here.

>You think he doesn't know drug activity when he sees it? He can and should refuse a room and ask offending or suspicious guests to leave.

And this is exactly the point. It's not his place to determine if someone "looks like" a drug user. If he has no specific knowledge of instances of drug use, he has no reason or in my opinion any right to deny someone service. Yes, its obvious when drug use happens in an area. But that is a far cry from identifying individual instances of drug users or other criminals. I do not want society to empower business owners to deny me business because I "look like" a drug user. The fact that you're even suggesting that is absurd.

Business owners already HAVE and EXERCISE those rights. It's the right and responsibility of a business owner to keep his establishment clean and not profit on the back of obvious illicit activity. He can refuse service to anybody for any reason not protected by anti-discrimination legislation. And he knows that, it's why he addressed it in a quote early in that article -- claiming if he took responsibility and cleaned his motel up he'd be accused of discrimination. That's a cop-out.

>And he knows that, it's why he addressed it in a quote early in that article -- claiming if he took responsibility and cleaned his motel up he'd be accused of discrimination. That's a cop-out.

Unless everyone he denied access to were white, he would open himself up to such litigation. It's not a cop-out. Making assumptions about someone's character based on how they look is fraught with landmines. It is unreasonable to expect a business owner to take on that responsibility.