SPOKANE, Wash. - The Ridpath Hotel is a downtown landmark in Spokane. You've probably stayed there, eaten there, or visited there. Over the years the landmark has fallen into disrepair. Now, as the city is teaming with property owners to clean it up, another blow: a vandalism spree inside several floors during the Fourth of July weekend caused some $40,000 in damages.
Police arrested five teens for the crime, and there's possibly a sixth, but while they face first-degree burglary charges in juvenile court, the property owners and investors are left picking up the pieces.
Monday, KHQ Local News got to see the damage. We found the vandals trashed entire rooms on several floors. The vandals tore apart chairs and scattered them all over. On the walls, they scrawled graffiti that read "hail satan" and "rot in hell." They tore out pages from the Bible and threw them about the room.
Lamps were also smashed and bookcases overturned. The teens allegedly tossed furniture from the second floor onto the old lobby down below.
The kitchen was completely trashed with dozens of crystal salt-and-pepper shakers shattered. Many of the damaged items were antiques, which cannot be replaced.
People have broken into the Ridpath before, but Stephen Antonietti, head of a group of investors trying to buy the Ridpath, said it's the worst he's ever seen it.
"We've worked for 19 months to try and put the hotel in some sense of array, to bring investor pools to our pockets so we can put this process together and to find the hotel in worse condition today than it was when we started 18 months ago just devastated our group."
The clean up effort begins in earnest Thursday, July 14.
VOLUNTEERING:
The group does need volunteers to help out. If you're interested, they're asking people to go to their website, http://www.saveridpathhotel.com/ and send an email to saveridpathhotel@live.com
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