Question

What are the differences between a hotel’s right to refuse to provide a room to a would-be guest and a restaurant’s right to exclude?

Draft a 250 - 300 word discussion explaining the your answer in detail.

Answer 1

Hotel’s right to refuse to provide a room to a would-be guest :

Hospitality sector have a variety of guests checking in and out each day. Some are really very nice and some are very annoying. To understand the real meaning of Hotel's right to refuse a room to a would be guest let's come across certain scenarios.

To begin with, let's first know what federal Law of Public Accomodations say. As per this law, one cannot descriminate with any of it's guests, on the basis of creed, cast, religion, sex, colour or any other physical disability. But on the other hand, as per the common law / on the grounds of common law, any hotel reserves rights to deny the service to it's guest. This law is only applicable under certain situations.

Let's take a scenario where an existing guest have created n number of problems for the existing staff and other fellow guests in the hotel like

* He has n number of false complaints and even if they are resolved he isn't happy. I mean, he is knowingly doing all such things just to create trouble for the staff. This is not just confined to complaints but is also threating limitless claims under potential lawsuit.

* He is not at all abiding by the rules and regulations of the hotel policy like non smoking inside the hotel premises, ordering outside food, and some more. In simpler terms he is also creating a trouble for other guests.

* He is threatening hotel staff and other guests of the hotel if they remind him about anything or address their concerns.

Please note: The issues highlited above are not jut repeated once. They are repeated several times that even the hotel authorities now remembers the guest name that how troublesome the guest is. Under these scenarios, the hotel reserves the right to blacklist the guest for future bookings and they can straight away refuse to allot him a room if he come again in future.

Under these grounds, the hotel would not be responsible for any legal action if the guests complaints. This also became necessary as the guest is never happy so he might go to the media or spoil their reputation in the market.

Whereas, If we talk about the restaurant scenario, they also can exclude the guests from giving service to them under the following grounds :

Let's say we went to a restaurant, for a dinner with say around 25-30 people. Usually what happens is, for bulk gathering pre booking is required. So in this scenario, you can be excluded from giving the dining service. Some more scenarios are listed below :

* There might be patrons who are unreasonably rowdy and causing trouble

* Patrons who may overfil the restaurants capacity if they are allowed to let in

* Patrons who just came before the restaurant closing time or when the kitchen is just closed.

* Patrons who are not at all hygenic i.e they might be with excessive dirt, extreme body odour, came with alcoholic drinks with them etc.

Under these scenarios the restaurant can exclude the services.

Hope this helps !!