We don’t try very hard.
(But then again, we don’t run an airport hotel that offers a park-and-fly package, so this question may describe a problem that we don’t need much of a plan to deal with . . .)
The shuttle doesn’t roll unless a registered guest, or someone holding a confirmed reservation, requests it, so never a problem there.
The only hotel at which I have ever worked that experienced problems with non-guests taking up our parking spaces in enough numbers to displace our registered guests was up in Connecticut, and that was due to spillover from a popular restaurant next door whose parking lot joined our own a little too seamlessly: not even the owners of either the restaurant or the hotel could tell me precisely where theirs left off and ours began. We approached it delicately, tried to talk to the owner because we wanted our relationship with the management of that restaurant to remain positive, but there was little he could do other than post a sign that would make us look bad and that people wouldn’t see until it’s too late. Eventually we had to make sure our agreement with a wrecker company was in good order, re-stripe the parking lot, and stencil each of the new stripes with a notice that said “HOTEL GUEST PARKING ONLY. TOWING ENFORCED. OBTAIN PARKING PERMIT AT FRONT DESK.” It worked. A little.
Parking enforcement is tricky for anyone who has to do it, not just hotels. To someone parking their car, leaving it in a certain spot for no longer than they plan to leave it there is the most reasonable thing in the world — even if there’s a sign or a notice requesting that they don’t. So, nothing works with the perpetrators short of a costly tow, which causes a lot of hard feelings and seems to them a heavy-handled penalty that’s disproportionate to the ‘benign’ nature of the offense. But property owners — whether a hotel, any other business that has a parking lot, or a municipality — can’t afford to have all their spots taken or misused. We don’t want to tow anyone, we don’t want to incur the hard feelings, we never towed anyone in Connecticut (which is why our striping venture didn’t work but just so well and gave only partial relief); but what lesser measure works with these people? What will deter them from parking there, other than having someone stand over the spot and insist that they go elsewhere, which we can’t spare anyone to do? So there’s a lot of hesitation around it on our end: we want the problem to go away but we don't want to incur the ill will in putting our foot down as necessary. Cops and meter maids have the lesser option of writing parking tickets, and violators incur fines, but even at that level, no one likes them: they’re regarded as overgrown kids who found it gratifying to have the teacher appoint them the name taker back in third grade when she left the room for her break, and who never outgrew that.
When we do have a problem with non-guests’ use of our facilities, it comes up in other areas. The pool, for example, although you’re in an awkward position if you get caught, because you don’t have time to get dressed and clear out if you see someone coming, is a common example. When I was just out of college, I lived in a place where there was an older motel with a pool on the next block and used theirs quite freely. The only reason it ended was that I drew attention to myself. (I could float on my back, enjoy the sun, and fall asleep. A couple of times, someone grabbed me, concerned that maybe I had drowned; and I kept doing it because it was fun to freak out my friends with it. The third time, it was a member of the hotel staff who’d jumped into the water to ‘save’ me, too many of the wrong questions were asked, and we got booted out and told never again to return. I can’t blame them: nowadays, I’d have thrown me out, too.)
Occasionally, it’s one or two individuals who get into the chow line at the complimentary breakfast. Exercise rooms in most hotels aren’t that popular even with people who are guests: in most hotels, the fitness room takes up one or two room bays and has maybe three pieces of equipment in it that nobody uses, and the franchise requirement is fulfilled and they're happy and can forget about it and move on to something they actually care about....
I don’t advocate doing it, of course; but it isn’t that difficult, or even risky, to bag a hotel and eat up their free food, and use their facilities without being a registered guest; so long as you blend in with the guests and don’t make it too obvious what you’re doing. (Most of the places we’ve caught people trying it are low-end properties near areas frequented by street people, and they’re pretty easy to spot. If you do it in my hotel, I’ll growl at you, and maybe have you escorted off the property; but I’m out, what, two or three bucks worth of muffins and a coffee, max? You’d have to be doing something that’s really asking for it, or I’d have to remember having busted you at least once before already, before I’d call the cops and have you arrested. Even then, the charge will likely be trespass: cops and assistant D.A.’s tend to not like accusations of people ‘stealing’ stuff that is ‘free’. It costs us, but when we invite guests to help themselves to it as a complimentary item, our property rights seem to get a little fuzzy in the eyes of others.)
For all the hostess or the morning clerk — or even I — will generally know, you’re a guest who checked in the night before. You don’t draw attention to yourself. And you don’t get too piggish with it. If you do either, you will be asked for your name and room number, and your answer will be compared with what shows up on a computer screen behind the desk, and you’re busted. If it’s a borderline situation (e.g., your mother is a registered guest but you’re not staying in the hotel, which makes you a ‘visitor’ as opposed to a registered ‘guest’, so at least you’re not on the property unlawfully and you have that much standing with us), I may let it slide completely.
Most managers will crack down only if there’s an obvious problem, or if food costs are getting too high (we do track ours, but it’s not possible to do it but just so precisely), but otherwise, it’s not something people think of guarding against.
(Of course, if you draw attention to yourself and get caught . . .)
Originally appeared on Quora.
No comments:
Post a Comment