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I love the St. Regis Bal Harbour Resort. I have stayed there many times since it opened in 2012 and consistently have had exceptional experiences (my latest review is here). A woman staying at the hotel in December 2023 sounds as if she had anything but a relaxing stay when she allegedly encountered an employee who entered her suite without permission and watched her shower. She is now suing the hotel for $7 million.
Some of the bathrooms at the St. Regis are larger than apartments that I have lived in. They’re luxe and offer tons of great amenities. The lawsuit states that the woman was a victim of “a heinous and unthinkable invasion of privacy.” She was showering in her locked room (apparently without the deadbolt engaged). An employee reportedly used a master key to gain access to her suite and then watched her shower. She turned and saw the man exit the bathroom, but he allegedly remained in her suite for several minutes after. She states in the lawsuit that she was “overcome with panic and fear.” This led her to run from the bathroom completely naked while screaming for the man to leave the room.
The Sun reports that according to the lawsuit, the man grazed her as he fled the suite. The woman then deadbolted the door and waited for her boyfriend to return from swimming. She reported this incident to the hotel and was was connected to the resort’s Loss Prevention Manager, Andres Garcia. She was moved to a larger suite for the incident, but was later charged for the upgrade. She wanted to contact the Bal Harbour Police and was told that the hotel would handle it. She wanted to identify the hotel employee, but was refused and told that could not happen without a subpoena. The police were not contacted until she made the call. The lawsuit is still pending and it will be interesting to see how this turns out.
Justin Shapiro, Partner, Leesfield & Partners (the legal counsel she retained), commented to The Sun:
This case represents a gross violation of personal privacy and basic safety standards. What’s most egregious is not only the initial misconduct by the hotel worker, but also the hotel’s failure to act appropriately in the aftermath. We are pursuing justice to hold these defendants fully accountable and to prevent future violations of this nature in the hospitality industry.”
Anthony’s Take: Gary at View from the Wing brought this story to my attention. I’m sure that this was a scary incident and I hope that this employee (if guilty) is dealt with appropriately. One bad apple can spoil the bunch, but I wouldn’t hold this against the St. Regis. The situation was not handled well, but the hotel remains a great one in my opinion.
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Advertiser & Editorial Disclosure: The Bulkhead Seat earns an affiliate commission for anyone approved through the links above This compensation may impact how and where links appear on this site. We work to provide the best publicly available offers to our readers. We frequently update them, but this site does not include all available offers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed, or approved by any of these entities.
1 comment
Not handled well? Sir I admire your impressive talent for understatement. This was a catastrophe. The hotel amazingly managed to do absolutely everything wrong. There’s simply no way that the hotel GM wasn’t involved in this series of debacles. That makes this not just a stunningly inept series of blunders by some low level manager but provides the imprimatur of the hotel as a whole. I dearly hope the woman wins in a very public case.