Stevo, not a single person who has posted has disagreed that someone smoking in a non-smoking room should be held to account for their actions.
In the case in question someone was smoking in a 'smoking allowed' room and was 'fined' £1600 (Everyone but davidrh considers this to be daylight robbery!)
The question I would ask is what would happen if there was an unwanted alarm caused by steam, aerosol, dust or excessive flatulence created by the guest. (I've established unwanted alarms have been caused by all of these) Would there be a similar charge? Could the hotel prove it was the guest who caused the problem?
Even if someone was to have smoked in a non-smoking room there is the likely probability that they would deny this. I would imagine that, legally, it would be up to the hotel to prove that they did. This could be very difficult.
If however hotels are allowed to debit someone's payment card on their unilateral desicion it opens up the system for abuse.
How long will it be before someone is fined £1600 for the fire detector operating in their room even though they did nothing to cause it? The hotel says they must have been smoking and takes a charge. how would anyone feel in these circumstances.
I believe the practice of deducting money from someone's card under these circumstances is less legal than the people who wheelclamp and even they are being taken to task these days.
Hotels would be better placed to get all guests to sign a contract where it was understood that no claims could be made by guests against the hotel for any loss of the guests enjoyment due to circumstances beyond the hotel's control i.e due to fire alarms activating etc. They don't cover loss or damage to vehicles on their property so why not fire alarm systems.
The guests would just have to understand that the fire alarm system is installed for their own safety and they would therefore have to accept the consequences of the operation of such systems.
