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Hotel Giant Warns Against Booking Sadistic Events 8/14/2002 Hotel Giant Warns Against Booking Sadistic Events “Each of our brands spends millions of dollars in marketing royalties … to promote a positive image and family-friendly environment. Just one negative event can wipe out years of painstaking and expensive efforts….” Hotel franchisees should think twice before hosting any more sadistic sex events like “Vicious Valentine 5,” according to officials from a parent corporation that runs more than 6,000 hotels, including Howard Johnson’s, Ramada Inns, Days Inn, Fairfield Resorts, Knights Inn, Wingate Inns and several other hotel chains. In a March 1 letter (full text below) that “every brand president sent out to their franchise system,” according to Liz Ryan Sax, senior manager of media relations for Cendant Corporation’s hotels, franchisees were warned about the consequences of hosting “controversial guests or groups that national interest groups find offensive.” The letter, which Sax provided to Culture & Family Report, said, “you cannot expect to keep controversial activities secret, especially considering the power of the Internet to disseminate information.” The letter also noted that “one of Cendant Corporation’s hotel brands recently suffered adverse national publicity when a franchisee decided to host a meeting of sadomasochism ‘enthusiasts’ after another area hotel declined the business.” The controversy began in February, when the Ramada O’Hare (Rosemont, Illinois) welcomed the sadomasochist and slave/master celebration, “Vicious Valentine 5 (VV5),” after the Radisson O’Hare had canceled the same event. “Beat Me in St. Louis” was held at the HOJO conference center at Lambert International Airport from April 26-28. “Beat Me” sported a dungeon equipped with medieval torture devices. Participants of “VV5” boasted of a 30,000-square-foot dungeon equipped with 40 torture stations. The “Dungeon Rules” suggested use of “a tarp or drop cloth” for messy blood scenes and for other bodily fluids. Two state chapters of Concerned Women for America — Illinois and Missouri — organized protests against the events. Kathy Valente, CWA Illinois director worked with radio talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger to publicize the problem. Although the events went on as planned, the corporations received numerous e-mails, faxes, letters and phone calls urging them not to book such events. Valente issued a press release on February 6 that decried the “sexual torture” at “Vicious Valentine 5.” CWA-Missouri opposed a “Vicious Valentine 5” event in February at a St. Louis Ramada Inn and then led opposition to the St. Louis “Beat Me” event. The Cendant letter warns franchisees not to schedule “controversial guests or groups that national interest groups find offensive.” The letter also states: Each of our brands spends millions of dollars in marketing royalties … to promote a positive image and family-friendly environment. Just one negative event can wipe out years of painstaking and expensive efforts to establish goodwill and a positive image of the hotel and the brand in the community. CWA-Missouri and Illinois had exposed the convention’s seamy events, which featured workshops on bloodletting and other sadistic sex practices. In response, Susan Wright, spokesman for the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF), a pro-sadism organization described by the New York Blade as a “gay-friendly group,” declared, “These are simply alternative forms of sexual expression that are safe, sane and consensual. It’s important that we realize that these religious groups are the real extremists.” “Let me get this straight,” said Joey Davis, CWA of Missouri director. “They beat each other up for pleasure, talk about ‘live-play cutting’ and bloodletting, and we’re the extremists?” In a February 14, 2002 press release, the NCSF announced a campaign to sue CWA and other “religious political extremists” for “defaming and interfering with legal contracts.” “Now that discrimination against lesbian, gay and bisexual groups is becoming increasingly unacceptable in America, these extremists are turning their hate on other sexual minorities and targeting adults who engage in alternative sexual expression, such as SM practitioners and transgendered individuals,” Wright said in the release. Wright also accused Valente, who had taken the case to the O’Reilly Factor and other national media venues, of making “false and defamatory statements.” “It’s Susan Wright who’s spreading misinformation,” Valente said Tuesday. “There’s nothing false about what we reported on these sadistic events. My facts come straight from their Web sites. I certainly don’t have the imagination to make this stuff up! ”The public is overwhelmingly on our side and Wright knows it. Otherwise, why would these groups have to hire security (often off-duty police)? They know that if Joe Q. Public stumbled upon a dungeon with people screaming at bloody torture stations, he’d be shocked! And if Joe’s kids were exposed to this, there’d definitely be a price to pay.“ The letter from the parent corporation did not surface until July 26, when the New York Blade, a homosexual newspaper, ran a story entitled ”HoJo says no.“ The article contained some factual errors, such as misidentifying Steven Belmonte as CEO of Cendant Corporation, whose CEO is Henry R. Silverman. Belmonte had headed the Ramada Inns division at the time and has since left the company. ”Our corporation does not host the events,“ Cendant’s Sax told Culture & Family Report. ”We do not own any of the hotels. They are individually owned and operated. We do require the hotel operators, when they enter into a license agreement with our corporation, to obey all local, state and federal laws. We feel the local government is the best judge on how the business should conduct itself with that particular community.“ Sax said that no one had contacted her at the time the controversy was at its peak, and she speculated that most of the comments were directed toward the local franchisees. Cendant also owns Coldwell Banker and Century 21 Realtors, Avis rental cars, Amerihost, Days Inn, Wingate Inns, and many other chains. To contact Cendant Corporation or its Howard Johnson and Ramada Inn subsidiaries, go to http://www.cendant.com/contact Or write: Henry Silverman March 1, 2002 Dear Franchisee: One of Cendant Corporation’s hotel brands recently suffered adverse national publicity when a franchisee decided to host a meeting of sadomasochism ”enthusiasts“ after another area hotel declined the business. We are prompted by this episode to share the following thoughts with you: Discretion is an important element of success in the hotel business. Please exercise discretion when you book controversial individual guests and groups. If you have any questions, please contact me immediately. Sincerely, [Hotel Chain] President |
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Concerned Women for America 1015 Fifteenth St. N.W., Suite 1100 Washington, D.C. 20005 Phone: (202) 488-7000 Fax: (202) 488-0806 |
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