A Side of Clyde
With at least two new hotels eventually opening in Los Altos, it’s interesting to wonder whether any increased police action will take place after the hotels are open.
With tourist season moving into high gear, hotels can expect new guests to register. Visitors will swim and sun in the pool, dine in the restaurants and relax. They’ll also steal everything not bolted down, and even radios and televisions that are.
On a recent trip to the southeast, I noticed a placard sitting on the television in the Gainesville Holiday Inn that stated, “the contents of this room are inventoried after each checkout.” I hadn’t seen that sign before, but Gainesville is the home of University of Florida and “party on” is heard every weekend.
According to the American Hotel and Motel Association, thefts cost hotels more than $100 million a year. People steal whether they are in a thrifty $40 room or a $400 suite.
That’s because they do things they never would do at home.
I spoke with the hotel manager in Ocala, Florida, and he said guests do odd things. People who don’t normally drink, get drunk. Faithful husbands cheat and honest people steal.
He said hotel managers fight back by nailing art to the wall, bolting radios to the tables and glueing vases to the nightstands. Televisions have secret alarms. Still, hotel management knows, it’s all a losing battle.
What do guests steal? Signature towels, soap, bathrobes, hangers, ashtrays, floor lamps and telephones. Bibles disappear occasionally, but more often, they have pages taken out, as do the Yellow Pages in the hotel telephone book.
I spoke with a hotel manager on the Peninsula who said unusual things happen to people who stay in hotels. People invite prostitutes and unsavory characters into their rooms, then awake to find valuables missing. Then, full of bluster and outrage, they cry “thief” the next morning and ask for the police.
Most hotel clerks are reluctant to call the police or even talk off the record about problems for fear of scaring away future guests.
Sometimes hotel management is loathe to even admit the obvious.
If people are brazen in what they steal, they’re also indifferent to what they leave behind.
Adult toys and dentures are two of the more primary items left behind. Drugs and drug-related paraphernalia often surface. So do dogs and cats, apparently left behind in hotel rooms by former guests/pet owners.
Where Magazine last year polled hotels in various U.S. cities, and found that the more unusual items left behind by today’s guests include live goldfish, wedding gowns and, more often than not, empty vials of Viagra.
Hotel managers say they don’t like to confront guests about smaller thefts. Nor do they tack on a $10 or $25 charge to replace a towel or a TV remote. It’s bad public relations and bad for business, they reason.
Maybe the new Los Altos hotels should place a placard on the TV that reads: “Before you steal the Gideon Bible from the hotel room – please read the Seventh Commandment -Thou shalt not steal.” That is, if the page has not been torn out.
Based on past history, the Los Altos police could be posting additional items in the police log once the hotels are open for business.
Clyde Noel is a longtime contributor to the Town Crier.
