Mike Stuart Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Senate Bill Would Require Hotels To Provide Human Trafficking Training

Senate Bill 472 would require West Virginia hotels to provide human trafficking awareness training and resources to their staff members. The bill will now be reviewed by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

A bill under discussion in the West Virginia Senate would require hotel owners to provide their staff training on human trafficking awareness.

Senate Bill 472 would require hotel employees who interface with guests, like reception and housekeeping staff, complete an annual training on identifying and reporting human trafficking.

The bill would also require employers to display a human trafficking awareness sign within their venues, with the phone number of the National Human Trafficking Resource Center featured prominently on it.

If the bill passes as written, hotels would be required to comply with the new standards by 2025 or face a fine of $2,000 per day of noncompliance.

Some lawmakers expressed concern over the severity of the fine at a meeting of the Senate Government Organization Committee on Tuesday, including Sen. Jason Barrett, R-Berkeley.

“I mean, that’s a pretty hefty fine at $2,000,” he said.

Also during the meeting, Richie Heath, executive director of the West Virginia Hospitality and Travel Association, told committee members that many corporate hotel chains already offer human trafficking awareness resources through the American Hotel and Lodging Association.

“Human trafficking has been a big issue, especially in the last several years,” he said. “There’s been a lot of emphasis on this in the industry.”

If the bill advances further in the Senate, Heath said that West Virginia hotel staff would benefit from flexibility in training curricula so that they would not have to undo training protocols already in place.

Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, said that providing these resources comes at a cost, and also pointed to a lack of data clarifying how effective these resources would actually be for hotel staff in the state.

“Although there aren’t substantial costs to this, there are more costs, right? More burdens of government to spend, whether it’s signage, whether it’s an area that needs to be designated, whether it’s a training program,” Stuart said.

“It just eats into that profitability,” he continued. “Perhaps not for Marriott or Hilton, but for Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s bed-and-breakfast.”

Despite the debate, committee members unanimously voted to refer the bill to the Senate with the recommendation that it pass, but only after an additional review by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

New Bill Would Make It Legal To Wine And Not Dine

Currently, wineries are required to serve food if wine is going to be consumed on premises, but a new law advancing through the Senate would change that.

Updated on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024 at 6:25 p.m.

Currently, wineries are required to serve food if wine is going to be consumed on premises, but a new law advancing through the Senate would change that.

Senate Bill 320 progressed to second reading Tuesday. The bill would remove the current requirement for wineries to serve food when any more than four ounces of wine is being consumed on site by a patron.

Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, vice chair of the Senate Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said the bill is good for the state’s business climate.

“This seems to be a smart move with less regulation, and more freedom,” Stuart said. “I trust people to do the right thing on this. The idea of whether there’s a cracker or there isn’t, is not gonna save somebody’s life.”

Being required to serve food, requires extra permitting and overhead costs for wineries. Stuart said deregulation in this industry could bolster the vineyard and wine industry and aid tourism.

“We’ve got a huge potential for wine tourism growth,” Stuart said. “Tourism is booming in West Virginia, I think we need to embrace it as much as we can. That’s why I think less regulation: Let these wineries do what they can to bring in more people to grow West Virginia.”

However, he says this is just a small change to deregulation of alcohol and drug sales. Unlike a bill that the House sent over to the Senate that legalizes making moonshine, or introduced legislation on the legalization of recreational Marijuana.

“It’s a very small tweak, not a huge change. I think it provides for freedom — that’s reasonable. And we don’t have to worry about the safety of our communities on this,” he said.

Virginia, a top wine producing state, has laws similar to SB 320 that permit wine to be served without food being served.

**Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story misidentified Sen. Mike Stuart, R-Kanawha, as Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo, R-Kanawha.

Public Integrity Investigation Unit Formed in West Virginia

Federal prosecutors in southern West Virginia say multiple agencies are forming a unit to investigate public corruption and suspected violations of campaign and election laws.

U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart and other agencies announced Tuesday the formation of a Public Integrity Special Investigations Unit.

Among the agencies involved in the unit are the FBI, the IRS, the U.S. departments of Veterans Affairs, Defense and Homeland Security, state police and the state auditor’s office.

Stuart says the secretary of state’s office will help investigate campaign and election law violations. Other investigations that the unit will handle are the misuse of public funds and suspected criminal activity.

He says the unit will focus on potential illegal activity involving both elected officials as well as federal, state and municipal employees.

Stuart calls public corruption “a cancer on our system of government.”

Feds to Bulk Up Prosecuting Crime in West Virginia City

More federal prosecutors will be used in a crackdown on gun and violent crime and drug trafficking in one West Virginia city.

The number of prosecutors focusing on those cases in Huntington will be doubled immediately and tripled within weeks, U.S. Attorney Mike Stuart said Thursday. He didn’t provide specific numbers.

Stuart said the goal of the Project Huntington initiative is to make West Virginia’s second-largest city the safest one in America. The effort will be led by assistant U.S. attorney Monica Coleman.

“The instructions to my team could not be more clear — put violent criminals behind bars, off the streets and in prison as long as possible,” Stuart said.

Speaking at a news conference along with Huntington interim Police Chief Hank Dial and Mayor Steve Williams, Stuart said “this is about teamwork.”

The city of Huntington, population 48,000, had a record 19 homicides last year, up from three in 2015.

“I can’t say enough about how excited I am about the partnership and the solutions that this is going to create,” Dial said.

Dial said existing efforts to slow down violent crimes in Huntington already appear to be working – there’s been a 27 percent reduction in such arrests in the first two months of this year compared to the same period of a year ago.

Last year U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed federal prosecutors to bring the toughest charges possible against most crime suspects. The move was a reversal of Obama-era policies and was assailed by critics as a return to failed drug-war policies that unduly affected minorities and filled prisons with nonviolent offenders.

Sessions also announced last year that federal prosecutors would be added in West Virginia’s southern district and other areas of the country ravaged by addition to focus exclusively on investigating health care fraud and opioid scams that are fueling the nation’s drug abuse epidemic.

In addition, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency has established a new field office in Louisville, Kentucky, to oversee opioid abuse investigations in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Cabell County has been hit hard by the opioid epidemic – on one day in August 2016, more than two people in Huntington overdosed on heroin during a five-hour span. In November, the sheriff’s office had its largest-ever drug seizure at a Huntington residence. West Virginia leads the nation by far in the rate of drug overdose deaths.

Williams said drug dealers must be stopped before reaching Huntington.

“This is a complex issue,” he said. “People are suffering from addiction and there are so many things that we have to do. We have to have prevention and intervention, we absolutely have to have treatment. But make no mistake about it. We have to have law enforcement.”

Top Federal Prosecutor Tapped for Southern West Virginia

A former West Virginia Republican Party chairman has been selected to become the top federal prosecutor in the southern half of the state.

President Donald Trump nominated Mike Stuart to be U.S. attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.

Republican U.S. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito says she recommended Stuart for the position. She says Stuart “has shown great leadership, professionalism, and character throughout his career.”

If confirmed, Stuart would take over from Carol Casto, who was appointed after former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin resigned in December 2015 to run for governor, a bid which he lost.

Stuart is an attorney from Charleston who served as state GOP chairman from 2010 to 2012. He served as a co-chairman of Trump’s West Virginia presidential campaign team.