Room and gloom at these South Jersey motels

THE PINK and blue neon sign outside the Bo-Bet Motel beckons weary travelers on the Black Horse Pike. In the morning, mom and the kids can lounge by the swimming pool while dad digests the sports section over a cup of joe inside the stainless-steel coffee shop.

That's what the Bo-Bet Motel in Mount Ephraim looked like decades ago, on a postcard.

Now, it's the Budget Inn, and on Monday afternoon, a young woman in a white tank top and flip-flops pushed a baby in a stroller through the parking lot, past the stretch of grass that used to be the pool - and past the convicted sex offender moving his belongings into a room.

The one-story, U-shaped motel is similar to dozens of others built after World War II on South Jersey highways . In the decades that followed, major highways, suburban development and larger hotels eclipsed them.

"They just kind of went by the wayside," said Mount Ephraim Mayor Joseph Wolk.

Today, many are used by social-service agencies as housing for parolees, sex offenders and the homeless. Police say they've become havens for prostitution, drugs, or worse.

Last month, a couple accused of kidnapping and murdering a tourist at an Atlantic City casino were arrested at the Golden Key Motel, one of about a dozen small, run-down motels that line the north side of the Black Horse Pike in Egg Harbor Township. In November 2006, four prostitutes were found dead in a marsh behind the Golden Key.

In April 2009, police in Middle Township, Cape May County, went to the Court House Motel on Route 9 to look for rape suspect Michael Wayne Williams. Police found him outside, but his wife, Ebony Flanders, was dead inside Room 4.

Middle Township Police Chief Christopher Leusner said the township enacted licensing ordinances and increased taxes for its dozen or so motels a few years back, but problems remain.

"It's still the driving force of our calls," he said of the motels.

At most of the motels, a customer can get a room for less than $50 a night, which isn't affordable over time. Many long-term tenants, including sex offenders and indigent families, pay only a portion of the costs or none at all because of government assistance.

The New Jersey State Parole Board, according to a spokesman, allocates $300,000 per year for emergency housing. The board doesn't give motel owners specific case details, but they are all aware that convicted offenders are being placed there.

"Additionally, we provide written information to local police about the residency of all offenders under our supervision," spokesman Neal Buccino said in an e-mail.

Many motel owners and employees declined to comment or did not return phone calls.

At the Budget Inn, in Mount Ephraim, a man who identified himself as "Mr. Patel" said he checks identification, but little else.

"I don't ask them about their lives or personal things," he said. "They come here and then they go."

At the Court House Motel in Middle Township, manager Alice Grace said that she doesn't have many problems with customers and that Michael Wayne Williams wasn't a problem either - until his wife was found dead in his room. (Williams remains jailed but no one has been charged in his wife's death.)

"If I feel somebody is going to cause me problems, I deal with it," Grace said.

Sex offenders are living or have lived in small motels in Camden, Gloucester, Burlington, Atlantic and Cape May counties, according to a search of New Jersey's Sex Offender Internet Registry.

The sex offender moving into the Budget Inn, in Mount Ephraim, earlier this week had been convicted of sexually assaulting an underage girl. He declined to comment.

Joyce Gabriel, a spokeswoman for Camden County, said county social-service agencies try to return registered sex offenders to their last known address, but that's not always possible due to their crimes. She emphasized that the county does not place sex offenders in the same motels where families with children are placed.

Many municipalities, including Mount Ephraim and Egg Harbor Township, have eyed the small motels for potential redevelopment, but their location and lot size make them expensive real estate. Cinnaminson once had a cluster of crime-ridden motels on Route 130, but numbers dwindled once the township enacted some of the "toughest motel regulations in the country," Mayor Anthony Minniti said.

Cinnaminson limited the number of days customers could stay in motels, along with eliminating "day rates," which cut down on prostitution. Minniti said the township worked with the Asian-American Hotel Owners Association and didn't receive any legal challenges.

"The motels on 'motel row' were the source of much of the crime in Cinnaminson and it's better now," he said. "We're down to about three or four of them."

Bulldozers might take the eyesore away and displace the crime, but it doesn't address the basic problem, said Bill Southrey, president of the Atlanic City Rescue Mission.

"People have to live somewhere," he said. "As much as the motels become traps for people, they're an integral part of our system. There are people living under the boardwalk in Atlantic City."

On Monday afternoon, Ken Hubbs and Shawna Meeser sat by the doorway of their room at Mount Ephraim's Budget Inn, drinking Budweiser tallboys. Hubbs, 42, is a laborer and Messer, 38, is disabled. They've been staying at the motel for about a month after a bedbug infestation forced them from an apartment.

They cook on a hot plate in their room, but when there are Little League games around the corner, they dine on hot dogs at the concession stand.

"It's not that bad here. The cops patrol it all the time," Messer said of the motel. "For some people, staying at a place like this is a vacation from their lives."

Vacation or not, they don't print postcards of the motel any longer.