first time that I had to call the cops (at work, long)

[smileyeagle1021]

as you can guess from the thread title... this one is a doozy...

Ok, so a lot of this is second hand from our swing shift employee and late night shuttle driver.

I'll start where I come in and fill in, in order that I heard it... k

So I come to work, first thing I do stop at the maintenance board to see if there is anything easy that I can do (which I do every time I'm a little early)... request for a new remote in 232 and a new ironing board in 110... oh that is easy, I can handle that, so I grab the requests off the board and go to the maintenance closet to grab a new remote and start going towards the room (for those of you who remember the map I posted, the maintenance closet is downstairs behind room 120 at the west end of the main hall)... as I'm going across the main hall upstairs this guy comes up to me and says
sc1 (guest is black, not relevant except for quotes later)- hey, I don't know what she told you but I didn't take no damned watch, why would I even be in that room, that's not the room that I paid for.
me-
sc1- why you looking at me like that.
me- I have no idea what you're talking about... I got here less than 5 minutes ago, I haven't even talked to any guests or coworkers, I just started on the maintenance list.
sc1- whatever.

ok, so I think this is odd... but we are an airport location so we get a lot of people who are on edge because of delayed flights, and also we aren't the best neighborhood in Salt Lake (ot, are there any airports in good neighborhoods...) so we don't attract that high class of clientele on people not coming from the airport. I shrug it off and deliver the remote and find an out of order room to borrow an ironing board from to move to 110.

so I get that done, go up to the desk and ask my coworker just what the hell that was about with the guy who confronted me in the hall... we have the following interesting conversation (note race is mentioned but isn't really relevant, the only reason I left it in the quotes for ease of retelling, will edit if mods request)

me-
sd- swing desk worker
es- evening shuttle driver

me- what the hell was that about with the guy who stopped me in the hall?
sd- was it a black guy, looks about just over 6 foot, big build?
me- yeah him.
es- oh God, he and his 2 friends have caused us no end of trouble tonight.
sd- do you hear that fire alarm?
me- yes
sd- that is from their room, they smoked so much in the room that it set off the alarm.
me- shit, ok, I guess I'll bill the smoking charge.
es- it gets worse.
me- oh God, how much worse can it be?
es- that alarm you hear right now is from there room, 214, that's because they destroyed the smoke detector.
me- wait, but I thought you said you responded to a smoke detector that had gone off because of smoke, not because of mechanical failure... (slowly dawns on me what is going on)... what happened.
sd- well the alarm came through on 212.
me- (looking at room board) 212 is vacan... (never finished the word as I really realize what is going on)
es- yeah, we were confused about it too.. we panicked and though it was a real fire so I took a master key with me to go see if it was a fire or a false alarm... when I went to open the door it had the security bar locked on it.
me- oh shit, that can't be good.
sd- no it's not... and this lady is furious because she thinks he took her watch out of that room.
me- wait is that the kinda short hispanic lady I saw pacing back and forth in the western hall?
sd- that is probably her, she admitted that they had all gone into that room because it had been left open. (later referred to as sc2)
es- yeah, we got them out of that room and back into the room they paid for but now the system is reporting the mechanical failure on the room they are supposed to be in.
me- wait back up, they just thought they could go into any room because the door was open
sd- apparently
me- ok so what are we going to do, are we just going to bill the damage, bill them for the second room, and let K deal with it in the morning?
sd- I think it's better if we kicked them out tonight.
me- I agree, they will probably only cause more problems.
es- yeah, I've already dealt with them once though, the black guy and hispanic lady seem to be level headed enough, but the white guy (later referred to as sc3) with them looked like he was on some kind of drugs... I don't trust him not to just go berserk and attack, and I have no way of knowing if they are armed or not.
me- I agree with ES's misgivings... the way SC1 just went out denying everything before I even knew what was going on makes me think he is guilty as sin, and makes me think he will fight it.
sd- well, I guess we will have to break our perfect record of no police involvement this month.
me- ES, can you call it in?
es- yeah, I'll call it in, SD, can you stay late sense I know they'll probably want to talk to you to.
(side noting, in case you didn't catch on, our shuttle driver also acts as security)
sd- yeah I'll stay.

so ES, calls the police, SD continues to run the desk, and I respond to a request to bring a crib into a room... of course once again, whatever can go wrong did go wrong, the upstairs housekeeping had a crib, but no sheets, blankets, or pillows for cribs, so I had to run back and forth between upstairs and downstairs housekeeping. I get back and talk to SD

me- hey, have the cops gotten here yet?
sd- yeah they're upstairs with ES.
me- oh good, so I didn't miss the fire works
sd- indeed.
so the first officer comes down (we'll call him O1)
O1- ok, they aren't too happy, but they aren't arguing too much with us.
me- good to here, can you tell me what the damage is.
O1- well both rooms reek of smoke, it looks like they didn't just take down the smoke detector in the one room, it looks like they completely destroyed it, and 214 is trashed.
me- joyous, I'll start working on the damage fines on that.
sd- I guess you guys are probably pretty busy tonight.
O1, actually we just started, you're our first call... having worked in a hotel before, I must say, I think you made the right choice calling us, I don't think anything bad would have happened but I certainly can see why you got a bad vibe and it's better to ere on the side of caution.
sd- hey, I've already put in 25 minutes of overtime, do you need me to hang around for anything?
O1- no, I don't think so, I don't think we'll need any statements or anything like that, if we do we'll just contact your manager in the morning to get it set up.
sd- thanks, I'm out of here.
enter officer 2 behind the 3 "guests" escorting them out
sc1- fuck, this night was supposed to be fun, leave it to you two (referring to the other guests) to fuck it up.
sc3- us, this is your fault
etc etc etc
sc2- (to me), do I have to do anything to check out
me- no it's already been taken care of.
sc2- ok, sorry about the problems.
me- uhuh, well in the future follow the rules outlined on the registration card and we won't have to do this again.

the three of them scurry out
O2- you guys got some real winners here.
me- oh yeah, they're damage came to $650... I hope that they are winners with a decent credit limit.
O2- ouch.
O1- that's not that bad
me- no not really, $200 per room cleaning fee for the smoking, $50 to replace the smoke detector, and $119 for the second room sense we will now have to upgrade someone to a suite to have enough room with 2 queens.
O2- talk about stupidity tax
me- oh yeah, I almost forgot to apply sales tax to that, thank you.
O2- glad to help
me- well thank you, I'd offer you some of our fresh baked cookies but the shuttle driver wasn't able to bake any tonight sense he was dealing with this.
O1- well thanks anyway, have a good evening.

so yes, thank you officers
and this is the first time I have ever had to call the cops while I've been at work (i've had to call the police off the clock only once, and that was when my car got broken into).
at least everything else tonight has gone relatively smoothly...

[KhirasHY]

Nothing so joyous as having a nice at people you're evicting, I say

[Javarod]

OT Airport locations

I don't think there are ever airports in good neighborhoods, the good people don't want to live within earshot of planes flying by, it is after all rather noisy, meaning that the property goes to anyone that'll put up with it, usually driving the rates down. Over here in Phx the aviation department is buying up land all around the airport because of this, though stupidly they've no plan for what to do with it, I'd suggest retail, light industrial and possibly office, retail by the airport is a good thing for travelers, light industrial likely couldn't care less about the noise, though offices might have a problem with that.

[Chromatix]

Offices can be fitted with enough soundproofing that the aircraft noise simply won't get through. Some office buildings have soundproofing anyway for security reasons (trade secrets in meetings being overheard).

You're right though, you shouldn't build residential next to an airport (or under the approach and departure paths), and you shouldn't build an airport beside residential areas.

A *good* example of a compromise is Liverpool John Lennon airport. It's built on the inside curve of the river, giving house-free approach and departure paths (there's only one runway) while still being quite close to the actual city. The nearby suburbs of Speke and Garston are not good areas (I'm speaking from experience here), but I suspect they're improving - the railways have seen fit to improve Garston station by moving it closer to the main line and renaming it.

[Evil Queen]

Wow Smiley, this is seriously a first for you? I think I've called the cops.... four times? the Fire Department Twice and I was damned close to calling CPS once but found the parent and told them off for it.

At THIS hotel. We won't talk about the first one I worked for.

But, seriously, this is why I feed the officers that come into my hotel.

[depechemodefan]

Liverpool John Lennon airport

I did not know there is a John Lennon airport! That is cool. though OT, thank goodness that our city named our airport after the first Pres. Bush; I would have hate it named after the 2nd Pres. Bush.

Anyway, so the guy went into an open room, of the hispanic woman that was with him or just some random room?

Wow, at least they didn't put too much of a fuss when they left. The police didn't have to wield their batons or anything.

[Gurndigarn]

You're right though, you shouldn't build residential next to an airport (or under the approach and departure paths), and you shouldn't build an airport beside residential areas.

You want fun? In a separate window or tab, open up google maps. Enter "Mariscal Sucre Intl station" in the location search box. Click the satellite button so that you get a view of the terrain.

OK, right now you should probably be fairly zoomed out. If you notice, the city of Quito runs essentially north-south. That's because it's in a valley (a valley at nearly 3km altitude), so there's really only one good flight path in.

OK, next thing to look at: scoot your map down a bit, so you see the south end of the runway and the roads. Notice the road marked "Amazonas"? It runs across the bottom and up the left side. Well, you can stand on the sidewalk there and watch the planes come up over the horizon as they're taking off. Dead serious. That runway isn't— or at least wasn't— flat.

It also housed a revolution while I was there, at a time when I was living somewhere around a kilometer away.

[smileyeagle1021]

I did not know there is a John Lennon airport! That is cool. though OT, thank goodness that our city named our airport after the first Pres. Bush; I would have hate it named after the 2nd Pres. Bush.

Anyway, so the guy went into an open room, of the hispanic woman that was with him or just some random room?

Wow, at least they didn't put too much of a fuss when they left. The police didn't have to wield their batons or anything.

ok, for clarification, the hispanic lady and the white guy were renting room 214, we still aren't entirely sure how the black guy fit in (he wasn't one of the people there when the hispanic lady checked in).... we think it might be kinda jerry springerish though... and together they decided they wanted to... I'm not sure what they thought they'd get out of it, but yeah, they all just broke into rm 212.
And I think they were smart enough to leave without resistance when the cops arrived because they should have known if they escalated it they wouldn't be looking at damage charges to the credit card... they'd be looking at criminal charges.

[Pagan]

Actually, the area that the Sunport is in isn't that bad of a neighborhood. It's near downtown and UNM and away from that "special" part of Central.

You're right though, you shouldn't build residential next to an airport (or under the approach and departure paths), and you shouldn't build an airport beside residential areas.

Tell that to the geniuses that give out building permits here. Bonus, the Sunport is right next to Kirtland AFB, which has been there for over 50 years.

Nevermind that the people that bought houses there know that there's an airport and AFB, but does that stop them from complaining?

Of course, we had that certain bunch in Las Cruces that complained about the Stealth when they would fly training missions from Holloman AFB....60 miles away. It's probably going to start up again now that the Raptor is there.

[PepperElf]

... well i know in the airports it's a federal offense to tamper with a smoke detector. how about in hotels?

[Samaliel]

... well i know in the airports it's a federal offense to tamper with a smoke detector. how about in hotels?

I'll take Endangerment of the Life of Others for $500, Dave.

[smileyeagle1021]

... well i know in the airports it's a federal offense to tamper with a smoke detector. how about in hotels?

other than being destruction of property I'm not aware of any laws against it... oh and no one's life was in danger... even if there was a fire there are a lot of redundancies built in... every single room has a detector and there are detectors approx. every 15 feet in the halls, as well as manual pull alarms (in fact the hotel wide alarm can only be set off manually), it would mean we have to move a little bit faster once the alarm is sounded but otherwise wouldn't risk anyone too much.