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ELMSFORD, N.Y. — Some Mercy College students housed in the Hampton Inn and Extended Stay hotel in Elmsford were involved in multiple disturbances around the village, police said.
The issues began Sept. 13, Elmsford police said, when a female student was arrested and charged with assault on another female student around midnight that Thursday. A group of three women, all Mercy students staying at the Hampton Inn at 200 Tarrytown Road, walked past another female, and one of the women in the group attacked her, according to police.
A struggle ensued, resulting in a cut on the victim's face, police said.
On Sept. 15, police responded to another call around 6 p.m. about a physical altercation between two female students at the Hampton Inn. Neither of the students pursued charges.
On Saturday, a caller reported that four men were walking through construction areas on Route 119 at 2 a.m. The men were yelling profanities, according to the report. One man picked up a paint stick in the construction zone, while another exposed his genitals, police said.
The men fled the scene and walked into the Hampton Inn, according to the report. Police said they identified one of the men and confirmed him as a Mercy student. The investigation is still ongoing, police said.
The college is housing students in the hotels because of an overflow of applications this semester. Mercy has been partnering with hotels near its campus in Dobbs Ferry for the past few years to accommodate its extra students. According to Mercy's website, the hotel rooms cost the same rates as Mercy's residence halls, with shuttle service throughout the day and evening to and from the campus.
A Hampton Inn manager declined to comment about whether the hotel staff was experiencing similar complaints.
Comments (2)
Hotels and motels have been a burden on the Village of Elmsford for decades. I’m assuming they were built along with the highways, parkways and dozen or so gas stations in Elmsford as our local part of the “American Driving Dream”. No one in the 1950s and 1960s could have anticipated the negative consequences, but by not learning from the mistakes the Village did not preclude by zoning additional facilities to be built and hence we received the Extended Stay not long ago.
The lower class hotels and “class-less” motels cater to a transient group of people with no place in the community. The only thing that was worse for the Village is when the motels and hotels were used for homeless housing. In the 1990s Elmsford had one of the highest per capita homeless populations around, certainly in Westchester County.
It is now 2012 and what is the Village left with?... dingy motels and 1 star hotels with no restaurants or amenities. They continue to be a strain on the Village’s limited resources, attracting a population that will never benefit the Village or its residents. Where is the relief? Where are the changes in law to prevent more hotels and motels? Mistakes happen and do not make people bad, not learning from mistakes and acting to prevent future mistakes makes the whole Village a fool. Re-zone the areas where motels exist now, Antun’s has closed, let’s act now before that property is re-developed into a 21st century flop house.
It is crazy that students have to be housed in these hotels. Mercy College should build dorms to accommodate their student needs. I understand that there was a time when Mercy was all about being a commuter school, but they have made a great decision to become a more complete college, attracting students from a wider distance. The need to have dorms on the Dobbs Ferry campus to make that effort complete. Luckily, there is a great location on their property that would provide fabulous dorms with views of the Hudson. The only safe way to have a large student population living together is to have it structured by the institution that best understands how to manage that age. Hotels are not set up to provide that kind of guidance. Having students have to commute from those hotels to the campus is also not ideal, increasing traffic on the streets. Build the dorms.