My dh posted this on another forum and I'm posting it everywhere (with his permission of course):

I am stunned.

This morning as my wife was checking out, I went to the parking garage -- to my shock the passenger side window was smashed in. Shattered glass all over our car seats. I went down to the front desk to inform my wife and the clerk states "oh, so you are the ones" This was at 11AM -- they KNEW about this since 4AM -- even had the police come, but did not inform us. Our car was exposed with a shattered window for 7 hours with no notification.

We ask to speak to the manager who tells us "Sorry, we aren't responsible and this is downtown Rochester after all." She then stated what they do when "this happens" -- which is having the maid service vacuum the glass and put a garbage bag over the window. It seems this happens often. They kept trying to tell us it wasn’t their garage but it was named the “Clarion Riverside Hotel Garage” and had the official Clarion sign everywhere.

I then asked to speak to the garage manager who while complaining to him, another couple came up to us and said "it happened to you as well! Our car was smashed last night too!"

The hotel could have cared less. To make matters worse, the person who broke into our car urinated in it as well. As we were leaving the lot (with a new garbage bag window) the parking lot tried to charge me for parking for the night.

We should have known we were in trouble when our first night there our bathtub did not drain (we were up to our knees in water after a less than 5 minute shower), duct tape around the remote and many lights missing light bulbs. After trying to fix the tub over two days we demanded another room. Further, when we got home, we noticed over one hundred dollars in charges we didn’t make on the bill; and only after numerous long distant phone calls were they removed. One of the charges was late checkout on the day we found out about our car and the reason we didn’t check out was because they told us not to until the issue was resolved.

Be careful, "suites" are not "suites" at all, the only difference between a regular room and the "suites" is that the "suites" have a microwave in them.

Just an awful, awful experience and sadly not done yet. I have a feeling we will be seeing them in small claims court in the near future.

Unreal!

While it sounds like you had a number of problems with the hotel, I'm not sure the complaint about the break-in rests as completely on the hotel as you think.

I've stayed in hotels next to parking garages, where not only guests, but the general public parked. Yes, I saw signs for the hotel in the garage, but it was only because the hotel leases "x" spaces. I know that most people don't fill in the car info on hotel registration forms when the info is requested. What was the hotel to do, call each guest to find if they owned the car? I would be one displeased guest if I received a call in the middle of the night for someone else's car. What would you have done for the 7 hours had you been notified??

Your other comments all seem legitibate enough, and like you, I am not pleased with what room configurations that hotels today will call "suites". To me, a suite means a living room area and a bedroom area separated by a wall and door. Yet hotels are often calling a room a suite after swapping one of the two beds with a sofa and adding a refrigerator/microwave. We used to call that configuration an "efficiency", not a "suite"

Well, the hotel does in fact own the garage. I just had the GM admit it to me. With regard to knowledge of who owned the car, the police arrived at 4 am, ran our license plate and then went to the front desk to have them id us, tell them our room number, or call me and my dh to advise what happened. The front desk refused to do any of those things. And what could have been done in those 7 hours? Well, first off, we could have found a way to close the vehicle so it wasn't open for 7 hours so others could find their way inside to take things. And, maybe it would have been easier to clean the urination instead of letting it dry for those seven hours. Or maybe they could have fixed our window better with more time so that it was flapping noisily for our 4 hour thruway drive home.

radio, find out who owns the parking service. I would bet money that the Clarion leases the services of the parking garage. This is industry norm as most city hotels do not have their own parking. It is contracted out.

If you read your parking ticket, I'm sure it states that they are not responsible for your car or belongings either.

Now, this is what you can do. Find out who owns the parking service. Get a name and an address. Find out from the parking service whether or not they employ security. Get a name and an address. Start a letter writing campaign. CC: every letter you write to the editor of the local paper, the Better Business Bureau, the Hotel General Manager, the parent company of the hotel, and the owner of the actual parking garage (the owner of the structure and the business are probably not the same). Direct the letters to the Parking Service head and the security company if they used any security.

This should at least put quite a bit of heat on the parking company and they may do something.

I wouldn't send emails. You need to take the time to write letters.

As rb stated, your issue isn't with the Clarion but the company they constract with for parking.

As someone who has worked in hotel business, I can assure you that it was probably a tough call for the night clerk to make.

For every guest who WOULD want to be called, you'll find a guest who would be UPSET they were called, with the opinion that they've not only sustained the damage/loss, but now lost a night's sleep. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

My last comment:

The police could have contacted you too, but must have also thought you'd prefer the sleep to the bad news.

the police did try to contact us as I stated in the previous post but the front desk wouldn't give them the info.

radio, for liability and insurance issues (I was an upper level hotel manager for years), I find it difficult to beleive the hotel owns the parking garage.

Not that I don't beleive you but I wonder if there isn't some quirky issue.

Hotels have a hard enough time taking care of F&B outlets that they seem to be weary of taking responsibility of other liabilities.

Was this downtown Rochester?

yes it was DT Rochester. I had the General Manager of the Hotel admit to me today that Clarion owns the garage.