King Eddy closed

The King Eddy hotel is officially closed, after the 24 residents reached a deal with the city over compensation.

The Calgary Health Region condemned the 99-year-old building Wednesday, saying there was a dangerous level of mould, not enough toilets and unsanitary conditions.

That meant the 24 people who call the blues hotel home were to be out by 8 a.m. Friday. However, nine refused to leave until they reached an agreement with the city over rent they'd already paid.

"The city is providing them with either accommodation or the equivalent of August and September rent, security deposits and a certain amount of money to assist them in whatever different things they may want," city spokesman Sandy Menzies said. "The equivalent is $1,000. For residents of the King Eddy that went to look after things themselves, we will be giving them a cheque for $1,000."

Menzies says it will likely cost the city about $30,000.

Thirteen people are staying at Salvation Army facilities and 11 residents, who will get the $1,000 cheque, will find their own accommodations.

The city, which has owned the hotel for three years and leases it back to the previous owner, has been criticized for not recognizing the deteriorating condition of the building sooner.

"I'd like to know how we passed the last inspections. When I was there, when I watched them walk through, when I watched them say 'you have to fix this, this and this.' Nothing was ever done," Daniel McKie, who lived and worked at the King Eddy for 18 months, said.

The CHR says before this week, a thorough inspection of the building was never done. Dennis Stefani, the public health inspector working on the case, says previous inspections involved only localized issues.

"The process is a complaint-driven process that addresses the specific issue brought forward by the complainant," he said. "We didn't have a mechanism to more broadly assess the building as a whole. We came in to address a specific complaint."

Stefani says the CHR is developing a new policy to assess low-income housing in the inner-city on a more regular basis, and that the process had started before the King Eddy situation arose.

The city of Calgary has arranged temporary homes for the 24 people displaced by the closure.

The city bought the famed hotel, reknowned as a blues club, for the land, Menzies said it planned to tear down the building for the 4th Street underpass. While that was being decided, the city leased the building to the previous owner, who continued to run it.