Sure a local address isn’t a good reason all on its own to refuse a room, its just a giant red flag. You’d look for other things like multiple cars, no luggage, alcohol, manner of dress, or lack of price sensitivity.
And yeah, you’d have to be a complete n00b to actually tell the person ‘no local guests’.
When I desk clerked, I’d quote locals ludicrous rates (unless they called ahead with a good story). If you don’t want to do it in your house, we probably don’t want it in ours. Even a little bit of drama- one arrest, one yeller, one drug deal- can lose ALL of the repeat guests who are the bread and butter.
The worst are affairs where the angry spouse spends all night calling, banging on doors, etc. it’s ugly and bad for business.
years ago I rented a motel room in Georgia (I think,? I may have still been in SC) and there was a big sign right on the counter saying they would not rent to local residents.
I figured it was to keep the prostitutes out.
I know a local Ramada would not give a room to anyone after 10 PM unless they had a reservation. I guess that’s probably true for many chain hotels.
In Nabokov’s Lolita, set in 1950s America, a hotel is described as having the sign “Near All Churches.” A critic said that that phrase was a recognized code for “No Jews Allowed” (Humbert Humbert is likely Jewish). Does that ring a bell? I don’t have a cite to the critic, but hes considered a very good one.
Also, the movie Barton Fink has a bit of dialogue where the specifically say “restricted” for hotels where no Jews sre allowed. The word–means blacks, Mexicans, etc. too, or just Jews? Has anyone ever heard the word used this way?
[QUOTE=Colibri]
You can be denied a room based on anything, unless it’s membership in a class protected against discrimination.
[/QUOTE]
Not so, at least in the Anglo-American legal tradition. Hotels fall into a special category of business on which a special duty to be open to all is imposed.
At common law, innkeepers are generally required to rent to “travellers” who are willing and able to pay. Over the years, the term traveler has been relaxed and it no longer matters whether the guest resides next door or a hundred miles away.
10PM is the magic line after which the crazy times begin. Somewhere, a switch is flipped and it’s down the rabbit hole we go.
Still, I would just judge people based on what I see. It’s pretty easy to just politely say you have no rooms available if they look skeevy or nutty. It’s easy to tell, and some people have a perfectly good reason to be caught out and need a room. Now we did have pay-up-front policy for walk-ins in the evening. It just doesn’t make sense to me to have your policy that rigid, as a hotel you should really want guests!
Anyway, it’s a stupid policy from the get go. It’s the hip looking business men who were booked in by their secretary weeks in advance who snort coke, shit in the bath and smuggle in prostitutes. This kind of stuff is just a given in the hotel business.
Is a hotel liable if a prostitute conducts business there?
Racial discrimination is pretty common in the North and rest of the US, as well. I’m not from the south but pretty much every one I know over 40 went to segregated schools, I experienced a lot of very open racism as a child of an interracial marriage in the 1990s, and my brother shared pretty convincing evidence that he experienced segregation at a restaurant just today.
All that said, of course I agree with your point- that I wouldn’t agree with the poster who doubted they cared she was black.
IMHO, they may have discriminated because of her race.
According to OP, yes.
At a former job, when the big crush came, there were times when I wouldn’t get out of work until something like 6:00 a.m. the following morning, leaving me to drive home 30 miles in rush hour traffic. Looking back at that, I realize that I was extremely lucky not to have caused any multi-car pileups on the highway.
So even if I had tried to do the responsible thing and check into a hotel to get a nap, it seems that wouldn’t have been an option?
I do remember a lot of incidents when I was much younger traveling on business where I tried to check into a famous suite hotel chain (it was only that chain it seems) on Friday nights. I was always given a lecture about throwing parties and guests in my room and required to sign a paper saying that they could throw me out at any time and keep my money. I remember one time there were a couple of older businessmen checking in next to me and I asked the clerk why they weren’t being given the same treatment. The clerk pulled out a copy of the special form and handed it to them to sign (without the lecture). I’m sure he ripped theirs up and threw it in the trash after I left.
“Bisexual”
what’s a Southern prostitute’s sales pitch?
When I’d turn down locals, I’d quote them an absurd price. If that didn’t work, I’d demand a large cash-only deposit. Again, if you called ahead with a good reason (having the house fumigated was common), it’d be no problem.
No, but it’s bad for business. The last thing you want is an angry pimp or an enraged spouse coming in to your hotel to cause a scene, and that actually does happen fairly often. Obvious prostitutes in the halls will cause your establishment to lose business, as families will find it unsavory and everyone will suspect it may be unsafe.
Small motels, in particular, often really on repeat visitors (people who vacation to the same place every year, or who have family near by they visit, etc.) and it’s really easy to scare them off for good.
So, what is a person to do if their home is suddenly uninhabitable? Gas leak, no power, fire, plumbing catastrophe, tented for termite fumigation, etc.?
Do they have to drive to another county to have any hopes of getting a hotel room? Do they need some sort of permission slip from the Red Cross saying they’re a decent person but they can’t go home?
ETA - Sven snuck that inn (heh!) while I was typing. While calling ahead is always a good idea, in a housing emergency, people may be just in a “grab a change of clothes and scram” mode. I know I got close to that about a month ago when we had a plumbing disaster.
What if she had volunteered that y’all were having the floors redone? Or staying out of house overnight for some other reason?
Would they still be refused?
Well when our water tank died abruptly [pressure liner popped the seam that had apparently rusted out, it was inside a wooden shell to keep rodents from coming into the house from the crawlspace] we just grabbed a backpack of clothing and went to the nearest motel for the night. When I am due at a doctors appointment at 8 am on a friday morning, I am not screwing around with no water in the house. We didn’t have any problem with not getting a room, and the place was all of 15 miles from the house. When I have to be at Yale-New Haven for something first thing in the morning, we will frequently get me a room at a nearby hotel so I don’t have to fuck with the traffic.
No, no it is Christmas you get refused at the hotel, not Easter.
This is something I’d like to see in Google Earth. Can you remember anything at all of the name, and which road you were on?
I have twice needed to get a hotel room in my home town. The first time I was required to pay a $100 deposit on the room because they had had so many problems with locals trashing their rooms (which they only seemed to want for either parties or illicit liaisons).
The second time was actually a Hampton Inn. We weren’t turned away or required to pay a deposit. I have no idea if it wasn’t the policy at that location or if it was because we told them we were moving out of town and had a 1 day difference between when we had to be out of our sold house and when we could move into our bought house. Whatever the reason, we got our room an had a nice relaxing night with a swim in the pool before the hassle of trying to move in on the day before Thanksgiving.
These instances were in the same town but in different hotels. The first one wasn’t a particularly nice hotel but it wasn’t a seedy motel either (or a chain). The Hampton Inn was brand new and quite nice.
Well, you know else got refused a room for the night, in her husband’s home town?