RUMFORD — Hotel Harris is co-owned by Dan Botwinik and Jeffrey Baker, both of Massachusetts. Botwinik is listed as the building’s manager, according to Maine Secretary of State corporation filings, doing business as Maine Coon Management.
Jim Adinolfi, marketing director and owner of Jadin Hotels, stands in the lobby of the Hotel Harris building in Rumford. Adinolfi handles marketing for the three rooms in the building on 25 Hartford St. that he says he offers to guests. (Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times)
On Friday, in an email to the Sun Journal, Botwinik said the relationship with Jim Adinolfi “has been a disaster” and he wanted to make sure the public was aware that “Hotel Harris, which is an apartment building still named for the historic hotel that was once here, is not affiliated with Jim and does not condone his behavior.”
According to Botwinik, a management company that had been running the building rented one room to Adinolfi last spring, with Botwinik’s permission, and “things seemed OK at first.” The partners then rented two more rooms to Adinolfi, and that’s when the complaints started piling up, Botwinik wrote.
He claimed Adinolfi has publicly misrepresented himself as the owner of the hotel and did a “variety of things to confuse and intimidate the residents” who were living there.
In June, Botwinik received an email from the town of Rumford noting that town officials “have reached a maximum tolerance with Mr. Adenalfi (sic) and have enlisted the help of the Rumford Police Department to assist in any future issues with him.”
According to town officials, Adinolfi repeatedly misrepresented himself as the hotel’s owner at public meetings, refused to move his car for construction crews working a massive renovation project on Congress Street and “removed town-owned photos/maps meant for public review and notification from a storefront” in the downtown, after he was specifically told not to remove them.
Rumford’s downtown is in the midst of a million-dollar renovation project, and town officials claim that Adinolfi has pulled multiple project managers and inspectors away from that job to address complaints and what the town considers “nonissues.”
Following that email from Rumford officials, Botwinik wrote to Adinolfi to alert him of the complaint and told him, “to put it simply, everyone in Rumford is fed up with you.”
In his email, sent June 16, 2018, Botwinik informed Adinolfi that the terms of his lease agreement for two units, of which he was a tenant at will, were terminated. To spare Adinolfi any damage to his “social media presence, your brand, your credit or your credibility,” Botwinik said he would waive eviction on the third unit, but asked him to leave “on your own terms.”
They reached an informal agreement for Adinolfi to vacate in the fall, but Adinolfi did not leave, Botwinik said.
Botwinik said the hotel owners have no intention of extending Adinolfi’s lease after Feb. 28, 2019, which is the end date in the lease agreement.
Botwinik said he and his partner are doing their best to renovate and repair the building, but having Adinolfi there “is certainly not helping.”
Botwinik and Blake formed their partnership and bought the building on the same day in June 2016.
In 2017, the two were involved in a civil lawsuit in Suffolk County Superior Court in Massachusetts over financing, care and maintenance of the building.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
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