HotelChatter

Tags: JDV Hospitality / → All Tags

General Manager's Incident Report from Cathedral Hill Hotel

[Ed. Note: This is the General Manager's incident report of a racial profiling at the Cathedral Hill Hotel. This report was submitted to us by oracle18, who is making the claim against the hotel. For the full story, see our exclusive report.]

Related to the guest incident December 6, 2006 at the Cathedral Hill Hotel: Summary and Conclusion.

Taken from employees, witnesses and corroborated by guest informal comments with Ted Kapsalis, AGM, and Artie Guidry, Director of Security.

Security incident report generated by the officer on duty who was the employee in the incident stated that he saw the guest (Mr. Smith) and his wife at the hotel desk at approximately 630 am.  Upon returning from rounds approximately 830 am employee admitted approaching Mr. Smith and wife who were drinking coffee and reading paper in the lobby.  The guests were waiting for a guest room to be ready and had already checked in.  In written and verbal statements employee does not provide logical reason to confront the two guests and violated security protocol by not first asking if they were staying on the property.  Employee stated that guest responded with "an attitude" but again violated security protocol by not approaching guest with helpful friendly perspective.  Employee states that Mr. Smith identified himself as a guest but that employee continued to escalate the confrontation which employee described in detail.  Employee states that guest stated that the confrontation was racially motivated.

Although employee did not describe any racial epithets being used, it is clear that employee's admitted behavior could easily have been interpreted that way, and employee did nothing to improve the situation.  Employee describes increasingly heated conversation including use of profanity by guest and then employee.   The employee's signed statement alone provided cause for termination.

Ted Kapsalis arrived on scene and told employee to depart the scene. Employee ignored direct order and continued the confrontation in a very rude manner to Mr. Smith and an insubordinate fashion to Ted.  Employee finally left scene.

Artie Guidry (employee's direct supervisor) and Errol Reyes (Human Resources) immediately interviewed employee while Ted spoke with Mr. Smith.  Ted focused on attempting to salvage the guest's comfort as it was already clear from what Ted wittnessed that the resolution with the employee was a foregone conclusion.  Employee verified the security report written by him and signed it, making the document part of the employee's file.  Ted and Errol called me in Sacramento for authorization to suspend employee pending my final review and I approved the suspension.  

Ted recommended and I agreed that we should conduct a refresher discussion on diversity as it relates to serving our diverse workforce and customer base with our management team, which we did this past Thursday.  During that meeting it was agreed to make this topic part of each Thursday morning's operations meeting, and to increase our department outreach for additional training on sensitivity.  Ted invited Mr. Smith to attend one of these during his next visit so that our staff could listen to the impact on others of a lack of sensitivity, poor decision making and bad customer service attitudes.

...His conduct was frankly appalling, and a major embarrassment to the rest of my team.  His attitude and approach do not reflect the rest of our team members and we are all disturbed that anyone could treat a guest in this fashion.

Brian Larson
General Manager
Cathedral Hill Hotel

Related Stories:
· Second JDV Hotel Accused of Racial Profiling [HotelChatter]
· Guest Account of Racial Profiling at Cathedral Hill Hotel [HotelChatter]
· JDV's Official Response to Racial Profiling at Cathedral Hill Hotel [HotelChatter]