Organizers and guests of a Denver craft beer festival filed a state discrimination complaint against a Greenwood Village hotel after two Puerto Rican guests said a manager refused to check one of them in and later kicked them both out and called the police.
Raices Brewing Co. owners Jose Beteta and Tamil Maldonado, who organize the national Latino craft beer festival Suave Fest, and guests Alberto Santiago and Jorge Montalvo filed a discrimination complaint with the Colorado Civil Rights Division in late November against the Extended Stay America in Greenwood Village.
The complaint, filed through firm Spark Justice Law LLC, alleges that when Santiago arrived at the hotel at 5200 S. Quebec St. on the afternoon of Sept. 30, the hotel manager refused to check him in and claimed his Puerto Rican ID was not a valid form of identification.
A hotel employee behind the desk told the manager he needed to manually enter the information, like the employee had done for Montalvo earlier that day. But the manager “became agitated,” told Santiago he was trespassing and called police, according to the complaint.
Santiago and Montalvo had traveled to Denver from Puerto Rico to promote a Puerto Rican brewery at Suave Fest and had both booked multi-night stays at the hotel, according to the complaint.
Santiago left the hotel to meet Montalvo and slept on the couch in Montalvo’s hotel room that night and the two attended Suave Fest the following day.
Montalvo’s keycard no longer worked when they returned from the festival, according to the complaint. While a staff member initially recoded the card so it would work, hotel employees, including the hotel manager, then told the men that the room had been reserved while they were gone and that there were “no rooms for them” at the hotel, the complaint states.
Montalvo had not received any communication from the hotel regarding checkout and his credit card was charged for his full three-day stay, according to the complaint.
Staff also refused to return the men’s belongings that were in the hotel room. The manager then called 911 and claimed Montalvo was “unwell.” After firefighters left the scene, the manager again called police, who arrived and told the men to leave and find somewhere else to stay. By that time it was 2 a.m., according to the complaint.
The hotel never returned their belongings, according to the complaint.
The incident impacts the safety of future Suave Fest guests “and the willingness of Latino and Hispanic individuals to travel to Denver to attend Suave Fest in the future, knowing that they too may be left without hotel accommodations solely on the basis of their ancestry and national origin,” the complaint states.
In a statement, attorney Laura Wolf of Spark Justice Law LLC said it was shocking to learn how Montalvo and Santiago were treated.
“We are hopeful Extended Stay America will change its policies and practices, including by disciplining those staff members involved in these incidents and by training staff what constitutes an actual emergency requiring police intervention,” Wolf said. “It is our goal to ensure this never happens again and that all visitors to our state, including Puerto Ricans and Latinos, feel welcome and safe when traveling to Colorado.”
Extended Stay America did not respond to requests for comment.
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