Motels in the News
• A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against the Hoover Days Inn in Mississippi, blaming the deaths of four students from the Mississippi University for Women on incense lit by a maintenance worker, which sparked the conflagration. Bigger culprit: the hotel itself, which was wood-framed and lacked a sprinkler system. (Generally speaking, hotels built before the 1960s aren’t required to have them in many places.) Given that open flames (everything from Sterno cans to full-on meth labs) are common in the cheaper motels, sprinklers are the first thing you check for.
• In-Room Amenities can be lethal: A woman stabbed her boyfriend five times in the back and twice in the chest using a butter knife, then severely burned him with hot cocoa before he fled the Empress Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. Reason? They were arguing over American Idol.
• Police discovered a cache of weapons at the Red Mill Inn in Branchburg New Jersey on Jan. 25, including a grenade launcher, .308 caliber semi-automatic assault rifle, countless rounds of ammunition. At the time of the man’s arrest he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. Given that police also found a police scanner, maps of a U.S. military installation, as well as a Middle Eastern red and white traditional headdress, he’s got some explaining to do.