HOMICIDE HOTEL IN FOR EXTREME MAKEOVER

The owner of a Downtown Eastside hotel that has been the scene of three
homicides in less than three months plans to evict his tenants and spend
$500,000 in renovations.

Sam Kim of the New Wing's Hotel at 143 Dunlevy St. admitted Wednesday he
must clean up his hotel and run a better operation to avoid further
violence inside the building.

"I'm feeling very sad about what happened," Kim told the Courier.

Kim is expected to submit architectural drawings of the proposed
renovations to city hall within the next week. The drawings are part of his
application for a building permit.

Once he obtains a permit, he will then need to give his 50 tenants two
months' notice to move out. Renovations could begin at the end of June and
last three to six months, he said.

Each of the rooms will be overhauled, and his second-floor office will be
replaced by an office on the ground level. The existing office is at the
top of a long staircase separated by an iron gate.

Kim was not in the office Monday night, around 9:30 p.m., when two men died
after a shooting inside the hotel. Abraham Habib Trumaine, 23, of no fixed
address died at the scene, and the second victim, who hasn't been
identified, died in hospital.

Police said the homicides are related to the drug trade. The homicides come
less than three months after the Jan. 28 shooting death of a man in the hotel.

Police haven't released the victim's name in the first homicide, but
arrested Berris Ambrose Smith, 26, of no fixed address. Smith has been
charged with first degree murder, also linked to drugs.

After speaking to a tenant on the phone Tuesday night, Kim said he believes
he knew the two victims in the latest homicides. Kim, in fact, barred one
of the victims from the hotel a few days prior to the shootings, he said.

"He was a guest, and had a bat or something that he used in a fight. I told
him that he couldn't come in the building. Then he picked up his stuff, and
he was gone."

If it's the same man, he slipped back into the hotel Monday night. When Kim
isn't in his office, he employs some of his tenants to watch the front
door, which can be seen from the office on a surveillance camera.

As of Friday morning, the hotel was still locked down as police continued
their investigation. The city has relocated tenants to hotels in the
Downtown Eastside.

Homicide investigators aren't releasing further details on the shootings,
and it's unclear whether there was an exchange of gunfire between the two
victims-or whether they were both murdered by a gunman.

The New Wing's has a long history with police, the fire department and the
city's licensing department. Over the years, police have arrested drug
dealers and answered numerous emergency calls for assaults and overdoses.

In October 2003, the city's business licence panel ordered Kim to take
building management and maintenance courses, install a buzzer for the front
door and keep a tenant and guest registry.

Even with those upgrades, Kim said he is still struggling because of the
hotel's location in the middle of an area overrun by the drug trade.
Addicts and dealers are frequently in his hotel.

"They are sick people and need their drugs. They bring the dope dealers in,
and the dealers are fighting for turf."

Barb Windsor, city deputy chief licensing inspector, said she hadn't
received a detailed report from police on the homicides. Once she does, she
could have Kim appear before a business licence panel again.

"I've been talking to him and he's trying to bring in a temporary manager
to assist him right now. So we're working with him on that. Whether [the
homicides] were his fault because of lack of management, or a fight between
tenants, I don't know."

Kim, a soft-spoken man who immigrated to Vancouver in 1967 from Seoul,
Korea, has owned the hotel for 17 years. During a tour of the hotel in
February, Kim told the Courier it was difficult to keep track of the people
in his hotel.

"It's almost impossible to control," he said, noting tenants are allowed to
have guests. "I'm not a police officer. The best thing to do would be to
legalize all these drugs. Then you won't need the dealers."