NOTICE:
This week a groundbreaking initiative to combat human trafficking in Canadian Hotels was launched. The British Columbia Hotel Association (BCHA), Alberta Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), Hospitality Saskatchewan, Manitoba Hotel Association (MHA), and Ontario Restaurant Hotel & Motel Association (ORHMA) signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) to develop and deliver human trafficking awareness and prevention training and resources to hotels - to train every hotel employee from BC to Ontario.
My career in hotel and corporate security introduced me to some of the world's harsher realities. In the still too male-dominated world of security, our jargon could lead some to believe we were hardass macho men who didn’t care much about what happened on the shadier sides of society, as long as everything looked fine on the surface of our luxury hotel. That’s often how security is portrayed and it’s a stereotype many, even industry insiders buy into.
I have advocated for my entire career to reduce the risk of exploitation of people in hotels. This article explains why I care about opening the eyes of hoteliers and helping them reduce the risk of being naive facilitators of trafficking, slavery, and human exploitation.
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Having never stepped foot in a five-star hotel before my job interview, I was as naive and gullible as my colleagues who, on average, were almost a decade younger than me. They had all completed their military service and a couple of them had been posted abroad on UN Peacekeeping missions. I had spent seven years in a university full of clubs proclaiming allegiance to either Pol Pot, Mao, or Karl Marx. Our naivité and gullibility were different but evened itself out in a weird sort of way.
Our hotel was a glittering, five-star property, a block from the castle. We had two restaurants, three bars, and 24-hour room service. Our nightclub was open until four am. My first shift was on a Friday night. I started at 11 pm and the shift ended at 11 am the next morning.
Shortly after three am, while the bass from the nightclub sent rhythmic tremors that swayed the lamps in the lobby, the double sliding doors of the main entrance opened revealing nothing but darkness in the street behind them. They closed as if to tease us before they reopened and the evening news anchor from the national broadcaster rolled in on a banana bike. Trailing him was a fair-haired girl still in the low end of her teenage years. The cyclist veered to the right along the wall. In his dark coat and black but faded fedora he was doing a poor job of camouflaging himself against the light grey wall. His companion, wearing a mini-jacket, a mini-skirt, and minimal else, traipsed along behind him.
My colleague stopped the cyclist before he reached the elevator lobby. The cyclist dismounted voluntarily and accepted his misdemeanour but angrily protested when he was informed his guest, whom he proclaimed was his niece, would not be allowed to accompany him to his room. He loudly informed my colleague, me, and the two night auitors that we were all fired. The night auditors continued to work uninterrupted. The girl was gone before we escorted the rider and his velocipede to the street and bid him goodnight.
Back inside, I mentioned to my colleague how young the girl looked.
“Yeah, she’s new. I’ve only seen her once or twice before.”
Discretion was the hotel’s number one policy when it came to prostitution. If someone was openly soliciting guests in one of the bars, we removed them. The definition of “openly soliciting” was when a guest complained. If a guest entered the hotel with a guest of their own, we didn’t intervene, unless they were riding a bicycle or otherwise causing a nuisance. That was our interpretation of “Protecting guest privacy and integrity”.
The concierge had phone numbers they could quietly share with inquisitive businessmen, but it was forbidden for the concierge to charge a fee for this service but a small tip was acceptable.
After a well-known, elderly lawyer used my tie as a swing, we changed our dress code so security only wore clip-on ties. The playground antics took place after a dispute which involved the lawyer, his expensive full-length leather coat, a bathtub, and a girl. The girl had charged extra for sex in the dry bathtub. The lawyer disputed the extra charge because they had offered the use of the leather coat to soften the tub. When the diminutive lawyer finally stopped swinging from the end of my tie, the police were called. After hearing the evidence they ruled in the girl’s favour. In lieu of payment, she accepted the lawyer’s leather garment. After his stay abruptly ended, the coatless lawyer was left to find his way home on the cold winter night.
Everyone in security knew the regular ladies of the night. Some even kept rankings of the cutest call girls. There were unofficial blacklists of guests who had misbehaved with escorts. Whenever there were disputes between girls and their johns that required our intervention, we sided with the girls. As mentioned above, if police needed to be called, they sided with the girls too.
The summer before the film “Pretty Woman” was released, a particularly pretty girl started to accompany men as they made their way through the lobby to the elevators. She always left on her own an hour or two later.
Some of my younger colleagues had crushes and dreamt of going on dates with her.
When Autumn came, her visits were less regular. The fawning security guards noticed how the colour was fading from her skin and how her eyes seemed to be sinking into her head. Then she stopped accompanying our guests.
When winter came, one of my colleagues met her on the street. She was turning tricks for people in cars. Better than doing it on cardboard in the snow she said. My colleague said he hugged her and offered to help her find help.
“I’m OK”, she whispered to him while she lifted his wallet from his back pocket.
In the macho world of security, my colleague was a laughing stock because a hooker had stolen his wallet.
The world always seems a brighter place in Springtime. Skies are bluer, grass peeks through the remains of the winter snow, and birds sing incessantly outside your window making it impossible to sleep after a nightshift.
It wasn’t uncommon for us to drag unwelcome junkies to the security office for questioning. It was uncommon for junkies to politely knock on our door.
It was midnight in March when two of them did.
They told us they had something of importance and they were certain we would pay them for it.
Doing their best impression of Special Agent Dale Cooper they flashed our colleague’s hotel ID-card.
It wasn’t worth anything, but we paid them $10 for it.
When we asked where they had got it from, they told us they got it off the callgirl we all knew.
We asked how she was doing and told them to say hello from us.
“Can’t say hello. She’s dead. Before we called the police, we took her wallet and found this in it.”
If you’re in the hospitality business or if you care about making hotels, hospitality, and travel safer for everyone, please consider subscribing to
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All of my stories are personal, authentic, and unashamedly enhanced by imperfect memory and literary creativity.
In addition to writing stories, I love to tell them.
As a multi-award-winning corporate leader in hospitality and global security, captivating keynotes, compelling coaching sessions, and edutaining, motivational workshops are all part of my repertoire.
Email me at paul@alwayscare.ca.
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