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Ace cops reporter Eric Townsend got a tip that some sort of enforcement action had taken place over at the Summit Executive Center. (Eric was busy with other matters this afternoon so Scoop came off the bench to pinch hit.)

For those of you who don't know, the Summit Executive Center is a one-story extended stay motel near the Charles B. Aycock Historic District. It's across the street from Auto Zone if you're driving on Summit Ave.

When I talked to him, Nall ran me through the basics of the building inspections process. The inspector looked through the building, found problems and cited them. The owners have about 30 days until the apartments are re-inspected. If the problems are cleared up by then, the citations go away. If the problems persist, further orders could ensue that would force the building's owners to either fix the issues or shut the place down.

Some of the rooms were ordered vacated sooner because they have more serious issues. In a lot of those cases, the issue was not having a working smoke detector. Those are the units with the bright-yellow placards you can see as you walk or drive by.

Like the above brief says, Watkins said all the problems would be taken care of by early next week.

Watkins is one of the owners of J FOUR Corp. of Greensboro. He's an orthodontist who has an office next the Summit Executive Center, and signs on the building actually direct potential tenants to his office to fill out rental applications.

In my conversation with Watkins, I acknowledged that one of the reasons we were asking about this particular building was because folks in the Aycock neighborhood had complained about it in the past.

Watkins said the building has gotten a bad rap.

Many of the building's inspection woes, he said, could be traced to tenant behavior. For example, smokers who rented the rooms would disable the smoke detectors so that lighting up wouldn't set them off. And city inspectors, he said, don't ask whether a smoke detector was present when someone moved in, they just ask whether its there when the inspection happens.

Watkins said the plumbing issues could be blamed for things that tenants flushed down the commode.

He also said that the Summit Executive Center is singled out for unfair attention, particularly from Aycock residents. Nearby businesses, he said, don't have problems with the building.

Well, let's hear it Aycock residents. It's been a while since the News and Record has written about this place. Have things cleaned up or do you think it's still a problem?

I'm slinking back off to Cap City, but other folks on our crack team will be watching for feedback. --mb