My knee-jerk answer is NO WAY, but hotels are not totally out-of-line for raising questions about local residents checking-in.
The issue was brought to my attention by The Gate, which shared a story about an Illinois couple being denied lodging at a Hampton Inn because they lived right down the street from hotel. They were doing remodeling in their house and needed a place to sleep away from the dust and noise.
Citing managerial policy, the front desk clerk denied them check-in. When they complained and threatened to go the media, the manager offered them $1,000 and a steak dinner. Instead, they chose to take the story to the press.
The “no locals” policy has been lifted at that hotel. It was originally instituted after a local resident “pulled out a gun on another guest at the hotel.”
I think the problem was the gun, not the residential address of the gun holder…
Another Story
This isn’t the only story of a local resident being denied lodging. Two sisters from Fort Myers couple were denied a room at a Best Western…on the basis that they lived in Fort Myers. One was 83 and the other 84. They lived on the other side of town, one suffered from Parkinson’s disease, there was a thunderstorm, and the two did not feel like driving home.
We do allow local people and we have had them here, but we have to understand what they’re doing here.
That may sound suspicious. It may sound predatory. But it actually makes sense.
Why would a local come to a hotel? Certainly there are many reasonable reasons, like two senior citizens who don’t feel like driving in a storm or a couple who is having work done in their house.
But let’s be real. Hotels are a perfect place to do things you wouldn’t want to do in your house. I’m not just talking about sex, which likely does not pose a risk to the hotel property. Instead, I’m talking about parties, drugs, and other illicit activities.
If I ran a hotel and some kids down the street showed up, even with a credit card, I’d be very skeptical.
A blanket policy banning locals is not the approach I would take, for exactly the two scenarios outlined in the story above, but I understand why a hotel owner might want to make a blanket policy to avoid any discrimination accusations for selectively enforcing the policy.
Check out this story, entitled, Outrageous behavior gets locals banned from two hotels, from Nevada. It discusses why two hotels banned local residents:
Both properties have incurred damages, down time for rooms for repairs or “airing out,” as well as the need for hazmat removal of items such as hypodermic needles, methamphetamine, used condoms, blood and other bodily fluids.
Isn’t that what you’d sort of expect from some local guests?
CONCLUSION
Hotels are perfect places to snort coke or cook meth. Why do it in your mother’s basement if you can do it at the local Best Western? I just cannot fault hotels for denying locals. As long as people are not excluded on the basis of their race, religion, creed, national origin, or religion (and in many jurisdictions sexual orientation or gender expression), hotels can legally ban local residents.
How about you? Do you think hoteliers should be able to deny local guests?
Are the people doing bad things in the rooms using stolen credit cards or fake IDs? Otherwise I don’t see how you don’t just go after these people after they do damage.
Besides, if an 84 year old wants to do meth in your hotel…cmon who is she hurting
A hotel is foolish to turn away guests doing blow. Those are high value customers! But whatever, ban locals, and deal with the fallout…
What’s amazing to me is that in some states a hotelier isn’t prohibited from refusing service to someone based on their sexual orientation or gender identity.
Sure, non-locals probably have more of a legitimate reason to stay at a hotel, but what exactly is to stop them from engaging in illicit behavior that puts the hotel’s bottom line at risk?
If you are selling a service, it should not matter where the people lived. Last I checked, US dollars paid by people living in the same city is still valid currency as USD from people from out of town. No hotel should ban locals from paying for a room. Unless you ask EVERYONE what their purpose is in staying at the hotel, that question is out-of-bounds too. It is none of the hotelier’s business. Out-of-town people can do drugs, etc. just as well. I have never heard of such a restriction and it is ridiculous.
Working at a few big chain hotels we never had anything like that brought up in a meeting. Long as the credit card worked we were good, had a few come in to get those bonus checkin stays and walk out the door lol. Crazy to turn money away our bosses will go crazy if they found out we did that.
“I think the problem was the gun, not the residential address of the gun holder…”
I’m sure the nra strongly disagrees and has you on their crosshairs now.
In their narrative, the problem would have been neither the gun nor the gun holder, but the lack of more people with guns…whatever this logic is…
@Seth Typical lib simplistic thinking. Stick with making your own arguments, don’t make straw man arguments of those who disagree with you.
For the record, the problem was the violent criminal individual, not the gun. How does it help to take guns away from law abiding citizens, leaving them helpless to the criminals that won’t be handing theirs in? You only want criminals, oh and the police that libs don’t trust either, to have guns? Or are you going to uninvent the gun? No thanks, I’ll keep mine.
That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of. Who cares where their permanent address is? And why couldn’t travelers wreck a room, smoke meth, have wild parties… Everything the locals are accused of doing. Seems like an excuse to target one group based on very flimsy evidence. Tourist go to Las Vegas and go crazy and trash their rooms every day. Here on LA, those that could afford it (or had great insurance) checked into hotels and motels when driven out by the local fires. I’m certainly staying in one instead of a shelter if it happens to me.
It never ceases to amaze me the barriers some retailers put up discouraging the public from handing over their money.
This is common behavior but always very surprising when the newspapers notice it again.
See a July 2014 investigation in Florida, “No room at the inn for local residents”, https://www.news-press.com/story/news/investigations/melanie-payne/2014/07/27/room-inn-local-residents/13223977/.
Or see also a July 2014 article in Nevada, “Outrageous behavior gets locals banned from two hotels”, https://pvtimes.com/news/outrageous-behavior-gets-locals-banned-from-two-hotels/.
Or see similar discussion on reddit saying this is a common practice, https://www.reddit.com/r/TalesFromTheFrontDesk/comments/2khje2/question_for_those_who_work_at_hotels_who_dont/ .
And see also a discussion in North Carolina: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g60742-i251-k3727393-Hampton_Inn_says_they_won_t_permit_locals_to_reserve_rooms-Asheville_North_Carolina.html
And a similar story in Missouri: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=686707
I think my takeaway here is that whenever I move, I should try to stay in every local hotel, particularly the inexpensive ones, and threaten to go to the media and complain about anyone who tries to refuses me, so that they’ll offer me “$1000 and a steak dinner” (as was the case in this story). Worst case I get to try some low-tier hotels near home, best case, free steak dinner!
Well, if local guests are troubling hotel staff and other guests staying in the hotel then obviously whatever done is correct. Every case is different and unique. However, there are few hotels that misbehave and trouble local guests as well after booking confirmation and getting paid.
I think we should not judge the matter from on angle only!
Depending on the city, that restriction does implicitly and significantly reduce the percentage of certain races who might use the hotel.
Kankakee is about 40% black residents.
Got a chuckle out of the ‘steak dinner’ part of the offer. The owner knew what kind of media story could arise.
More research is needed on your part for this specific case. The Hampton Inn did not ban people that are “local” specifically — they banned people from Kanakee while not banning those from the suburb of Bradley — where the the hotel actually was located. So they were happy to allow the 95.6% white “local” clientele but banned the 45% black “nearby” clientele.
That quite simply doesn’t pass the smell test and would quite possibly open them up to legal liability.
I was not aware of those doing drugs, but I do need to use a local hotel when it comes to getting the house a termite work done. In this case, I would need a place for a week.
Although, if hotels are being used for drugs, then we are screwed!
Banning locals is bad policy for the reasons mentioned above.
I’ve also booked rooms locally because of a power outage in my area and when having a lot of visiting guests from overseas – I want to pay for the room (and get the points!).
One solution would be to check in with a passport.
So I’m going to pull my high school status as spelling & grammar king on you. “Fort Myers” does not have an “e” after the “M”. Drives me nuts to see people spell it that way, probably because I have relatives that live there.
Fixed it for you!
This is totally ridiculous. I had many occasions where local people stayed at local hotels not oy in the US but in Europe as well. Most of them were corporate events/offsite meetings and they asked everyone to stay at the hotel so people could network as a team in a non work environment. Also, corporate holiday parties where my company did not want anyone driving home after drinking and they offered to pay hotel instead of Uber. I personally have friends that go out to watch a concert and then a late dinner and prefer to book a hotel downtown than go back home in the suburbs. I had a family that moved to a local hotel for 3 months while their home was being renovated. These are just examples that I know. Worst case scenario you can always use a passport as form of identification when checking in and that does not show your address. BTW, Valentine’s day is a day when many couples spend the night at local hotels. Seriously, I never heard of a local hotel saying no to local guests.
Couldn’t you just go to the next town over to get carnal knowledge, cook meth, do blow, etc.?
Yes, you could, but believe me, criminals aren’t that smart.
I, for one have never had this be a problem. From time to time, I will rent a room the night before at a hotel adjacent to LAX. Usually, I choose either the mainline Hilton, Marriott or what was old, is new again Hyatt.
Even though I live in the L.A. area – I have never been asked any questions as to why I’m renting the room – and I don’t use the Park and Fly offers – as I find they are not the best deal – combined with whatever hotel discount I’m using at the time.
My family has owned hotels for many years – and parties and prostitution are the biggies. When Craiglist had their escort and hook-up ads – our hotel in the SCV was part of a sting operation with the L.A. County Sheriff (who contracts with the city of Santa Clarita – ie. the incident at Saugus High last week), to stamp out the illicit behavior. Other issues are those who rent rooms for drug laden sex parties – and the damage caused to the rooms – let alone the smoke from the illegal drugs being used in non-smoking rooms. Often times the credit card (or usually a debit card) will not have enough open to buy to cover the damages. The cost to litigate outweighs the expense of recovering any monies or placing liens against the renter(s).
So, from a hotelier/innkeeper standpoint, I can understand the franchise owners direction about not renting to locals.
99% of the time, if the guest has a frequent stay profile with past activity, it’s a good bet that there will not be a problem. The hotelier has probably had conversations with his local police department in Bourbannais, Il (where the property is located), and I bet the local police probably suggested to stop renting to those from nearby Kankakee, Il. as a way to reduce calls to the property.
Just watch LIve P.D. on A&E Friday and Saturday nights and you’ll see the number of calls made by the various policing agencies to hotels throughout the U.S. for problems with transient guests – usually involving illicit drug use and or prostitution – and some of these activities mixed together. It’s a big problem across the United States, and I applaud this hotel property owner for being vigilant.
SO_CAL_RETAIL_SLUT
In large cities, I appreciate the role that hotels play in garnering a sense of nightlife (e.g. hotel bars serving as places to meet up, even for locals). I think the problem with elicit hotel usage is more attributable to limited-service hotels such as Best Western and Hampton Inn, where the rates are cheap enough to attract a lower clientele, and where there is a lack of house detective or other means to control elicit behaviour such as the loud parties.
Indeed this is a sad phenomenon but customer is what matters in the end. I have seen many owners looking the other way but in the and every single action counts. Reputation is very hard to earn and even harder to keep.
In the Uk and Australia, this is never an issue as many people like to spend a couple of nights simply for a change and some pampering. Many luxury hotels are now adding Wellness spas to the property which is adding a further customer for the day but also includes a night’s stay with dinner just to make it a real treat.
Why travel for miles if you have a great hotel on your doorstep?
Candlewood Hotel Columbia, MOn65203 My Wife and I came back for another night stay. Due to our home furnice still being broken. I Called prior to arrival and was told had room Available young man said would put hold on it for us. We Arrived at 11:30ish and we’re told can NOT rent room to Locals? I see no rules on web page or written at that location. But was ok just few days ago charge me $200+ for Stay but on the 19th things all of a sudden changed What kind of discrimination is this ?
Maybe upset as Hay Couple ? or Our Service Diabetic allerta 10 lb Dog
My wife is 65 years old with Lupus RA and Diabetes. Staying in our place when it was 65 in the house 17 outside and Temperature dropping to -7 wind-chill house was only going to get colder. I felt it unsafe for us to stay.
I am extremely upset and requested an explanation of this so called no locals ruel!
The neighbor Hotel, Marriott had no problem taking us in giving us much better rate. Hotel was much cleaner and did not find Employees have Dinner in Lobby with Friends.. All employees at Marriot were masked and very friendly. Candlewood front Desk was not using Mask was rude and completely standoffish. NOTE: I had even donated A hand full of 3 layer Quality masks to them on my previous stay. Jan 15-17 – Maybe Homofobia or Don’t likey Name?
Mrs. Lopez.. U filed and will continue to let folks know this is Wrong in so many ways, like others have Said this needs to be on a case by case issue.
I had stopped at the Days Inn in West Memphis AR to rent a room. The hotel clerk asked was I a local or traveling through. I told her traveling through and showed my out of state I’d. I was surprised by this because what difference does it make if someone is local or not. However west memphis and even memphis which is a 15 min drive away have lots of homelessness and I think the hotels are wary of renting to them.