Bad enough to bring a class-action lawsuit:
A guest at the Hilton Garden Inn in Santa Rosa, Calif., filed a class-action lawsuit against the hotel over a 75-cent charge for a newspaper, officials say.
Rodney Harmon, 55, filed the suit in U.S. District Court in San Francisco Wednesday, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. He alleges the hotel chain deceived him and is also hurting the environment.
“He did not request a newspaper and assumed it had been placed there by hotel staff,” his suit states. Harmon accused the Hilton of intentionally hiding the cost of the newspaper by using an “extremely small font, which is difficult to notice or read” on the sleeve of room cards.
Bulk distribution to hotels has been a favorite way newspapers have padded their circulation in the past 10 years, or at least since the big, post-internet circulation slides began. If I’m traveling, I actually like to read the local rag. I DON’T want to read USA Today or some other national paper. If I get charged for those without my say-so, count me in on that class-action suit.