Grand Forks, ND Building Safety: Door Locking Hardware (2026)

City Code § 21-1107(6)(E) requires the doors of all guest rooms used for sleeping in any hotel or motel to be equipped with proper bolts or locks that let occupants lock or bolt the door securely from inside the room, and specifies that the hardware must be built so it is impossible to unbolt or unlock the door from outside. This sits among the article's building requirements in § 21-1107(6), alongside minimum floor space of seventy square feet per single occupant plus fifty additional square feet per added occupant, a minimum room temperature of sixty-eight degrees and a cooling capacity of seventy-seven degrees, and standards for bedding, room furnishings, and toilet facilities.

Compliance with the door-lock rule is folded into the licensing process rather than enforced as a stand-alone building code violation: § 21-1103 requires construction plans for a hotel or motel to be approved by building inspections before work starts, and § 21-1106 makes every licensed hotel and motel subject to inspection to confirm the business is conducted in a lawful, proper, clean, and sanitary manner. A failure found on inspection, including a guest room without a compliant interior lock, is reported to the city council and, per § 21-1105, can support refusal to issue or revocation of the operating license.

The health department also holds inspection and abatement authority under § 21-1107(4), letting it suspend use of the facility until noncompliance with the article's requirements, including building requirements like the door-lock rule, is corrected.