One of the world’s biggest hotel brands is taking one of it’s own franchises to court over for what they deem turning a nice, luxury hotel into a migrant shelter.
According to a report from Fox Business, Marriott International is suing one of its franchisees for breach of contract, claiming the defendants violated their agreement with the hotel chain by turning a New York City property into a shelter for migrants.
In a complaint filed in federal court last week, Marriott alleged Pride Hotel LLC, violated its franchisee agreement to run a property in the Jamaica neighborhood of Queens as a dual-branded Aloft and Element hotel, when the operators instead entered into a “lucrative” contract with the City of New York to house migrants and asylum seekers.
Aloft and Element are two of Marriott’s more than 30 brands, and Marriott claims Pride Hotel not only failed to notify Marriott of its plans, but failed to remove Marriott’s trademarks and branding before opening up the hotel as a migrant shelter.
The complaint says Pride Hotel’s move caused “significant harm” to Marriott, which is suing the franchisee for more than $2.6 million in damages.
According to the report, New York City hotels housing migrants have brought in more than a billion dollars in taxpayer funds since converting their buildings into migrant shelters.
And according to the New York Post, the city is spending an average of $156 per room per night on hotel rooms that house migrants, with some rooms costing the city over $300 per night.
The report also noted that New York City has spent about $4.88 billion on the migrant crisis over the last few years, the report notes, $1.98 billion of which has gone toward housing.
While some of the nearly $2 billion that has been spent on housing has gone to city shelters, roughly 80% of the shelters being used by the city are motels or inns, internal documents obtained by the New York Post revealed.