The Motel Caswell is infamous in my hometown of Tewksbury, Massachusetts. It isn't exactly a place people talk about all the time, but when you're taking somebody through town and you drive by, you have to mention how gross the place is. Of course you've never been inside, but you've heard about drug and prostitution busts there. I was never sure how true those rumors actually were until I saw a story about the place on BoingBoing.
Apparently the Tewksbury police, along with the DOJ, are trying to seize the property for the government so the town can retain some of the proceeds from that seizure. If the place is really such a wretched hive of scum and villainy you would think this would be a pretty cut and dry process, but apparently the owners, the Caswells, haven't been charged with any crimes. I haven't done much research, so I don't know how true that is (considering the video above makes absolutely no mention of the problems everyone else seems to know about).
So the video is obviously a little but of libertarian propaganda: the poor small businessman being attacked by the greedy government, but why should the big bad government have the legal recourse to take someone's property without accusing them with any wrongdoing? Is it a public health issue? Probably. Should the Caswells have their day in court regardless? Most definitely.
In the end, why do I care so much about this? it isn't really because of the legal ambiguity and the stimulating conversation about individual property rights. My home town was being discussed on an internationally popular website in regards to something that really does have some serious implications in the way our government does business. It certainly helped that I got to tell the world that the voice over pronounced Tewksbury wrong several times. It's pronounced like I took away your crack pipe when I arrested you.
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