20 Years and this is a first

I recently had a meeting with the folks at the University Sheraton Hotel. Up to several weeks ago this was one of my favorite places to play. Beautiful room and a generally upscale clientele. Though there had been a handful of "moments" they were nothing out of the ordinary and I enjoyed a good rapport with the banquet staff. All of my events, including the event in question, were huge successes. Thats what made the out come of this meeting, in my opinion, so ridiculous.

This was an attempt to work out a disagreement and some outrageous threats made against me by a manager on duty at the hotel during a Bar Mitzvah performance from 7pm to 11pm. At 10:30pm a woman, dressed in an SU sweatshirt approached my table and said, "If you don't turn down I will unplug you." No identification, no greeting. She simplythreatened to unplug my equipment, mid party, with a packed dancefloor and when I told her to go ahead, knowing full well she wouldn't she threatened to have my van towed if I didn't comply. Additionally she had a security guard at the hotel threaten to remove me physically from the building while I was attempting to secure my vehicle. She felt I was too loud and claimed that, get this, 300 people staying in the hotel had complained. This despite the complete lack of any complaint from the party guests, my client, the manager of the ballroom, and the head of security.

So fast forward to the meeting and ....

Nothing. After having made the unbelievable and outright false claim that there had never been a complaint regarding an event in the ballroom (in actual fact it is a regular occurence that guests staying on the floor directly above the ballroom complain about any noise coming from below. This was confirmed with every DJ company I contacted who had played at the University Sheraton) the manager in question went on to recant a myriad of lies she had told her colleagues regarding the events of that evening yet still maintained that her job was, by hotel policy, to prevent room comps and complaints by all means possible and that was just the way it was. No apology. No explanation of her outrageous behavior.

In a nutshell the head of security summed it up like this. The Sheraton University (run by the Starwood Group) places it's desire to not have to "comp" rooms for guests that complain over the desires and satisfaction of the clients who book events in their facility. Any guest staying in the hotel can determine the sound level that is appropriate for any party, held any time, day or night in the Hotel ballroom, simply by claiming that it is too loud for them.

Henceforth....

I WILL NO LONGER ACCEPT EVENTS BOOKED AT THE SHERATON UNIVERSITY HOTEL.

Let me make this abundantly clear, this decision was mine. I was not asked to refrain from performing at the hotel, or banned or anything of the kind. In fact I think they were quite shocked when I informed them that I would no longer appear there. You see there are very few DJ's for high-end Bar/Bat Mitzvahs in this area and I am one of them.

My concern is for the success of the event at which I am performing. While I can empathize with the manager on duty's predicament, in light of this ridiculous corporate policy, I will not place the desires of a single hotel guest over those of my client and their guests.

In 20 years I have never felt the need to boycott a reception location but there's a first time for everything.