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- When does a “protest” officially become a “riot”, and when does a hotel escalate it’s own internal threat level from code orange to code red?
- The short answer to the question of what resources do hotels have to protect their guests when events like riots spiral out of control is summed up in two words: preparation and communication
Put yourself in these shoes: You take a few days off from work and pull together a spontaneous trip with your family for a fall foliage adventure in the South. You camp with your kids in Great Smoky National Park, stay out with your spouse later than you have in years at a Nashville honky-tonk bar, and then end your vacation at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Charlotte to live a few days of luxury before heading home.
A few hours after checking-in, while you’re getting ready for dinner at BLT Steak in the hotel lobby, you catch wind that the local protest the staff had alerted you to earlier in the day has morphed into a riot. You call downstairs. The hotel is on lockdown. You turn on the television, pull out your laptop, and jump on
Out front, your Mercedes SUV still parked with the valet has officially made the national news.
Anyone who was a Ritz Carlton guest last night in the heart of Uptown Charlotte spent the night in the middle of riot zone, in which two people were shot, one fatally, and tear gas and shock grenades were repeatedly fired by the Charlotte police at rioters directly in front of the hotel entrance. No matter how worldly one’s travels, I can assure you that everyone at the Ritz Uptown last night had at least one moment of panic for the safety of themselves or their families.
Even before September 11th, 2001 every time I checked into a hotel the first thing I made sure I knew was the quickest way out. It’s an instinct I’ve learned through almost three decades of travel. Whether you’re in a restaurant, theater, at a public rally, or in your own home if it goes up in flames it’s the seconds that matter when all hell breaks loose.
Which is precisely why my wife and I stay at Ritz Carlton hotels as often as we can. I’m generally confident that they won’t build a hotel in neighborhoods where drug gangs are rampant or in countries where I have to worry about a revolution breaking out on short notice. Luxury, 5-star hotels, like the Ritz Carlton, have everything riding on brand integrity and consistency, and more and more these days that’s defined by ensuring the unquestionable safety (and privacy) of their guests in a seemingly ever more unstable world.
Every large hotel group, especially those catering to affluent guests and business travelers, have protocols and procedures in place to deal with virtually every possible threat to guests’ safety: fire, earthquakes, hurricanes, bedbug outbreaks, power outages, you name it. Some you can see coming and prepare for. Others require the equivalent of hospitality triage. Like cruise ships, hotel groups also have massive insurance policies to back these protocols up in the event of “unforeseen contingencies”.
But what about protests? Especially protests that minute by minute start to look more menacing and potentially violent, threatening guests’ (and employees’) safety with ever more dangerous consequences? When does a “protest” officially become a “riot”, and when does a hotel escalate it’s own internal threat level from code orange to code red? Most importantly what resources do hotel brands like the Ritz Carlton and the Omni, which was also caught in the Uptown crossfire, have at their disposal other than calling 911 to ensure their guests’ are not at risk?
Last night in Charlotte is as instructive as any night will get.
If you watched the events in Uptown Charlotte unfold on television, the most frightening part was the speed of escalation. What started as a peaceful protest attended by families with children morphed into a full-on riot with looting, vandalism, and gunshots fired faster than you could get half way through dinner.
Crowds protesting the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott on Tuesday began to gather at Marshall Park five blocks south of Uptown around 7:00 pm last night. A little over an hour later, a splinter protest group started gathering at the intersection of Trade and College Streets directly between the Omni and Ritz Carlton hotels, quickly swelling to more than 800 people and looking less and less peaceful. I watched it all unfold flipping through three different news networks and monitoring the social media feeds of online journalists on the ground. Every guest (and employee) at the Ritz Uptown was undoubtedly doing the same thing.
According to various news and social media sources on location, just after 8:00 pm protesters attempted to storm the Omni Hotel caddy-corner from the Ritz, where guests were on lockdown. Charlotte riot police, already mobilized, fired tear gas and encircled the Omni’s entrance, keeping protesters confined to the intersection of Trade and College streets.
Shortly after 8:30 pm shots rang out in front of the Epicenter entertainment venue located on the corner directly across from the Omni and the Ritz—and that's when the Ritz staff went from code orange to code red. As medics tried to evacuate the black male who was shot (and eventually died from a bullet wound to the head), multiple news and social media outlets reported repeated 911 calls from Ritz personnel, who by this point had already locked the hotel doors and, according to others sources, barricaded the windows of the lobby and BLT Steak with furniture.
“There’s no manual or protocol for when you think things are about to get dangerous,” one Ritz Carlton Uptown senior staff member told me. “You just have a gut feeling and you have to listen to it. That's what we're trained to do. The safety and security of our guests are our top priority, and with something like this you have to make judgement calls every minute.”
In addition to reacting quickly to the unfolding events outside, the Ritz Carlton Uptown staff also stuck to the internal plan they had put in place at an 8:00 am security meeting that morning, which included advising guests upon checking in where they could have dinner in adjacent buildings connected by sky bridges to avoid walking on the street and staying in touch personally with certain guests by phone to advise them of the hotel's lock-down status. After the shooting, the Ritz also allowed a number of non-guests who were having dinner nearby and caught up in the ensuing chaos to take refuge in the hotel's lobby, many of whom were eventually offered free rooms for the night when it became clear that the protests were not going to subside quickly.
Just before 10:00 pm according to sources, the Ritz Uptown staff made the wise decision to usher all of its guests not sheltering in their rooms up to the 15th floor bar to get off street level. Directly in front of the Ritz Uptown portico chere, 100 Charlotte police and SWAT team members in riot gear were lined up in a phalanx attempting the back the rioters south down Trade Street towards the
The short answer to the question of what resources do hotels have to protect their guests when events like riots spiral out of control is summed up in two words: preparation and communication. Have a plan, stick to it, and keep your guests informed. You don't become one of the most trusted hotel brands in the world without anticipating contingencies and staying out ahead of your clients' concerns.
"From a hotel perspective you have to plan that whatever it is, it’s going to happen right at your front door," one Ritz Carlton Uptown staff member told me. "And this time it did. But everyone in the hotel is a security guard when they’re needed and we’re all trained for these types of situations. It’s all about preparation.”
The Ritz Carlton Charlotte also issued the following formal statement a few hours ago:
"The safety and security of our guests remains a top priority at our hotel. We have taken measures to increase the safety of our guests and associates and are doing what we can to make our guests comfortable. We have well-established security plans and our staff has been trained to respond appropriately to concerning situations. We are closely monitoring the ongoing situation and we continue to work closely with and follow the guidance of local authorities."
