City of Branson Reports Progress on Lodging Initiative

The City of Branson releases information on their Lodging Initiative program.

The release from the City of Branson is below:

The City of Branson is reporting progress after approximately six months of conducting a new ‘Lodging Safety Initiative’ designed to ensure all lodging establishments operating within city limits are complying with required public health and safety standards. To date, a total of six lodging establishments have been closed due to either failure to address significant life and safety violations, not having a valid business license, and/or substantially delinquent payment of city water bills.

This initiative is the result of a comprehensive review of the City’s adopted codes, along with input from various business and non-profit stakeholders. Under the initiative’s framework, lodging establishments failing to demonstrate significant progress to achieve compliance with city code and business licensing requirements are subject to closure and city water disconnection.

Through the initiative, City departments have been directed to enforce existing codes and authority of the City in encouraging compliance with local ordinances regarding building structures, property maintenance, and fire code requirements that are in place to protect public health and safety. This initiative is intended to address severe offenders operating lodging establishments under non-compliant conditions with significant public health and/or life and safety violations.

“This has been a strategic effort to reinforce the credibility and legitimacy of our City’s business licensing program,” said Cathy Stepp, City of Branson Administrator. “The City’s Lodging Safety Initiative consists of layers of actions that we uniformly follow, including a series of required actions, notices, and compliance timeframe for lodging establishments to demonstrate they are committed to working with us to gain compliance with city codes to protect public health and safety,” said Stepp.

The majority of lodging establishments operating within city limits routinely meet the regulatory inspections and requirements necessary to be issued a City business license. Through the implementation of the Lodging Safety Initiative, the City of Branson is emphasizing a commitment to ensure consistency and accountability in the protection of public health and safety for visiting guests and other occupants of lodging establishments located within city limits. For more information, please visit the City’s website: www.bransonmo.gov/lodgingsafetyinitiative.