Charlotte: Trouble at the Marriott
It seems that after several hundred NRA convention goers made reservations to stay at the Marriott and, in addition, Grass Roots North Carolina also held its “Gala for Gun Rights” on Friday night at the location. GRNC had, in fact, by all accounts carefully verified in advance that Marriott was not one of the many gun-free zones that make Charlotte a deeply undesireable city for 2A conventions and events.
Subsequent to taking payment and check-in of said guests and organization (estimated at over $100,000), on Friday night, during the Gala, Diehl and his minions posted the hotel as a no-firearms zone using quickie computer printed signs and scotch tape to hit all the entrances – instantly criminalizing those present and placing them at risk of prosecution if they were in possession of firearms on the premises.
Such prosecution would place them at risk of imprisonment, fines, and loss of their Concealed Pistol Licenses.
May 21st, 2010 at 10:52 am
A similar event has caused me to avoid the Marriot chain like any other plague. You cannot trust the management.
Stranger
May 21st, 2010 at 11:27 am
Three words for the Marriott chain – Are you stupid?
Does Marriott not know about the internet, about the re-activated and hyper-attentive gun rights movement? Have they never heard of Zumbo? WTF were they thinking?
Sell their damn stock, and stop staying at Marriott – let them survive on the gun grabbers conventions.
What? There aren’t any? Oh well, sucks to be them.
May 21st, 2010 at 11:39 am
Well, this Lifetime Silver Elite member will be avoiding them like the plague unless this is resolved in a proper Zumbo like fashion.
May 21st, 2010 at 11:58 am
Five words – Yours is a Very bad Hotel
May 21st, 2010 at 12:00 pm
I used to stay at the Marriott a lot for work, no more.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:24 pm
I practically lived at a Marriott for 2 years when I worked in St Louis. So much for that.
You don’t have to be Pro-gun to get my business. You just have to be not-anti-gun.
May 21st, 2010 at 12:55 pm
Who is Diehl and why was he able to do such stupid shit and circumvent published hotel policy at the last minute?
May 21st, 2010 at 1:14 pm
Contact info here:
Jim Diehl(manager) at jim.diehl@marriott.com
And
https://www.marriott.com/suggest/suggest.mi
And
Corporate Communications at (301) 380-7770 and leave a message for Kathleen Matthews, Executive Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs
May 21st, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Just remember to be courteous if you contact them.
May 21st, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Zumbo was at the convention, BTW…
May 21st, 2010 at 3:24 pm
According to Paul Valone, President of GRNC, Kathleen Matthews, Exec VP, Global Communications and Public Relations, is the wife of Chris Matthews. Yes, that Chris Matthews. I doubt this will give him the same tingle down the leg as Obama.
May 21st, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Just sent an email complaining about Marriott’s hostility towards civil/human rights, their despicable business practices, and offering that a public apology and reassignment of the craven Mr. Diehl to a position where he no longer has the authority to do such bad things would be a start…
May 21st, 2010 at 4:01 pm
J Richardson is correct
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Matthews
May 21st, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Why then was the convention in Charlotte??? WHY NOT ARIZONA!! They need you business there.
Screw the Marriott. Why any city or state that might do this? There is a Depression going now. Money is KING. Spend it wisely.
May 21st, 2010 at 5:43 pm
“Zumbo was at the convention, BTW…”
I know I shook his hand and muttered about looking at the terrorist rifles 😀
May 21st, 2010 at 7:30 pm
A Zumbo solution is a bit much to hope for. According to the smarmy email Marriott sends to everyone who complains, their policy is to disarm everyone everywhere. As if that’s supposed to make us feel better than they weren’t just unreasonable jerks in this one instance, they’re unreasonable jerks all the time. Consistency, hobgoblins, etc.
May 21st, 2010 at 7:49 pm
THAT is why I quit staying at Marriott back in the 80’s, and none of my project folks stay there either… I figure I’ve personally cost them at least $500k in business over the years…
May 21st, 2010 at 8:28 pm
Don’t let Mariott off that easy, people. If the hotel manager actually assured people that they could carry, had them on the property carrying, then cut them off without proper warning, it seems to me a tort of placing them in legal jeopardy has occurred. Lawsuits SHOULD be filed against the manager and the hotel chain.
May 21st, 2010 at 8:38 pm
Harsh memo to Marriott corporate offices emailed.
May 21st, 2010 at 10:00 pm
If you’re spending $100k, get a contract. GRNC could easily have contracted the Marriot to have ceased all alcohol sales for their stay.
May 21st, 2010 at 11:35 pm
you cant just cease alcohol sales, the license would have to be revoked.
May 22nd, 2010 at 11:40 am
Been boycotting Marriott since 1992. I was staying at a Courtyard that summer while on Army duty at a local base. I got up early on a Saturday to go run. I walked through the lobby on my way out – and walked into an armed robbery!
I had a shotgun muzzle against my chest and a big hand of a bad guy on my shoulder dragging me to the center of the lobby, then throwing me down on the floor. He jumped the counter, grabbed the loot, then ran out the back of the hotel.
The cops caught him a mile away and I made the ID. Later that morning as I was sitting in my room still shaking, the manager of the hotel called me and offered to buy me breakfast. I said I wasn’t hungry after begging for my life on their lobby floor.
They haven’t received a penny from me since.
May 22nd, 2010 at 9:38 pm
When they sent me the “We normally ban firearms, but due to constructions the signs weren’t up for a while” response, I asked
1: You had a firearms related event with LOTS of people and didn’t bother to mention that you ban arms? Even when they asked?
2: You waited until AFTER the thing started to put up your hastily-printed signs?
No response, and I doubt they’ll get one. Their “Don’t blame us” canned message says all we need to know. No Marriott for me.
May 23rd, 2010 at 1:05 am
If not being a gun-free zone was condition for GNRC choosing the Marriott as a location, if that is recorded *anywhere* in text and the signs did carry force of law then GNRC and perhaps NRA should sue Marriott for breach of contract and
bleed
them
DRY.
Money is the language of business; the gun community at large should in essence give them the worst ‘sag to your knees and cry’ chewing out that’s ever been said, in their native language.
May 23rd, 2010 at 1:08 am
Ah, and Diehl and associates should be brought up on any criminal charges that could be made apply. I’m sure conspiracy fits, possibly South Carolina has on the books ‘conspiracy to deprive of civil rights’ or… attempted entrapment? Abuse of civil services?
That’s just far too damn shady to have no recourse under criminal statute, IMHO.
May 23rd, 2010 at 4:39 pm
But wait, it is their property, isn’t that right? According to many here, that is just fine. After all, their property, their rules, right?
May 23rd, 2010 at 11:01 pm
Save a few of those impolite words for NRA. They didn’t need to hold the convention there. And no, don’t try to tell me they didn’t know beforehand. That would be just saying they are stupidly incompetent.
May 24th, 2010 at 10:45 am
divermedic: It’s their property, that’s fine. It’s also my money, and it’s fine with me if they don’t get any of it.
May 24th, 2010 at 9:29 pm
Ah, but there is no shortage of people here screaming “Lawsuit” and “There oughta be a LAW!”
Including Rivrdog and DrStrangegun
May 24th, 2010 at 10:19 pm
The lack of facts needs to be addressed: who printed and copied and posted the signs? What time exactly were they posted? Would patrons of the event have seen a non-posted entry when they arrived, and a posted entry on their exit, or where patrons informed during the event of the posting? What legal force does a posted sign (presuming it meets legal requirements for signage of “posted” property) have if it is posted AFTER guests enter armed?
I suspect the bottom line will involve a Marriot minion’s poorly thought out response to his or her very own PSH attack, upon learning that the ongoing event was jammed full of gun carriers.
May 25th, 2010 at 7:30 am
I didn’t say ‘there oughtta be a law!’ I said ‘we oughtta USE the law!’.
If someone tried to entrap a large group of people into felonious activity for their own personal/corporate reasons, by God there ought to be litigation. The hotel people just tried to cajole hundreds into PERMANENTLY LOSING THEIR RIGHTS.
Can you imagine if they’d been successful? Having every person present with a firearm convicted of a felony and *never* being allowed to be in the control of a firearm (or vote, for that matter) ever again?
An entity was promised something that was not delivered. That’s actionable. But someone also tried to abuse force of law to steal civil rights from a large group of people. That’s criminal. Divemedic, what would you have done? Ignore it? Boycott? Boycotts are for ‘lawful’ social issues. You don’t boycott a company that performed an act that is essentially identical to manipulating the law to have the rights of free speech removed permanently from hundreds of people; you instead beat that company senseless with the same nation of law they tried to beat you over the head with.
If there’s not an applicable law, then you boycott, because it’s a lawful social issue. But this is serious enough that I’m reasonably sure there’s something that applies.
May 25th, 2010 at 7:36 am
And divemedic:
Yes, it was their property. It was also their CONTRACT. And should it be deemed severe enough, it was also their CRIMINAL ACTIVITY against a group that was present permissibly under an agreed contract.
Somewhat the same shades of signing a rental agreement with someone to rent a room, promising them they could have a dog, and then having them evicted, after no damage to the property at all, for having a dog. The owner does not get to yell ‘My Property!’ as a defense, there was an enforceable contract in play.
May 25th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
I see the hypocrisy here- it is only “my property, my rules” until your own ox is gored.
May 25th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
dive, i can’t speak for others, but it is their property and their rules. trying to get them to change their rules via market pressure is OK with me. I personally oppose getting a law passed to do the same.