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Hilton’s Response to Your Response

- Friday, April 21, 2006 |

Thank you for the literally thousands of e-mails generated to the management of the Hilton Hotels Corporation on behalf of Fran O’Brien’s Stadium Steakhouse and the troops. You were so effective that they closed the e-mail addresses we published. You can still reach them through the Hilton Honors website – hhonors@hilton.com

In the meantime, Hilton has been hitting the “Reply” button. Some of you received a note that comes partially from a message posted on the Hilton website – “For strictly business reasons related solely to the inability to reach a new lease agreement, the Capital Hilton has elected to terminate the lease with the operator of Fran O’Brien’s restaurant at the hotel. This decision was not at all related to the Friday night dinners for disabled veterans but rather a result of lease negotiations that failed.”

This requires illumination. As we pointed out, the restaurant is not ADA compliant. JINSA talked to (for now anonymous) management at the Capital Hilton (not the corporate people in Los Angeles, but in the actual building). The manager said, “The (wheelchair) lift is in the 2007 budget. We’ve taken three bids for the elevator.” Since Fran O’Brien’s lease was up in 2005, any agreement they could have reached would have required the restaurant to agree that the elevator not be installed for a minimum of 12 months.

The lawyers among us please enlighten us, but our understanding is that since ADA was passed during the span of the previous lease it didn’t require immediate repairs, but a new lease would have kicked in the upgrade. A “negotiation” predicated on the owners agreeing to maintain a dangerous, and perhaps illegal, situation is a) not serious and b) bound to fail. “We compromised on just about everything else, but we said, ‘You have to do the lift,” owner Hal Koster told a journalist. It seems, then, that Hilton decided to terminate the lease, leave the building empty until 2007 and then find another tenant.

The Hilton’s missive also said, “The hotel offered to host and sponsor the May 5, 2006 dinner and expressed interest in working closely with the veterans to continue the Friday night tradition.” Illumination: The original message on the Hilton’s website said, “sponsor,” and they had talked about letting the soldiers use an upstairs room for a price. Only after we pointed out that there are already “sponsors” that pay for the dinners – including a great many of you – did Hilton add the word “host” as in “pay for.” And only once. And “working closely with the veterans” doesn’t mean much; the veterans are guests of the restaurant, not the organizers of the event.

Fran O’Brien’s isn’t about food and Hilton doesn’t get it. Italian Ambassador Giovanni Castellaneta gets it. As many of you know, the Finmeccanica companies of Italy and North America have been among Fran O’Brien’s most important sponsors. The Ambassador has offered his Embassy and his personal chef. Talk about good allies and good friends!

Hal and Marty have ensured that the soldier dinners will continue even if the venue changes – but there is still (limited) time for the Hilton to do the right thing.