2008 Woodie Awards
Hotel 'High' Spot Open Again
Owner rips manager's dope-y comments
Sergio R. Bichao
Issue date: 11/28/05 Section: News
The owner of the Robert Treat Hotel, where 140 Rutgers-Newark students are housed in makeshift dorms, said he re-opened his hotel's open-air rooftop lounge after reading in the Observer that his manager shut down the hangout spot because students went there to drink and take drugs.
Miles Berger, president of Robert Treat Hotel Inc., wrote a letter to the Observer defending student residents against the criticism leveled by his own hotel manager, Alex Haile.
Last month, Haile called this semester's students "unruly" and "nothing but headache (sic)."
"Mr. Haile's remarks to your reporter were wrong and uncalled for, and on that note I apologize to the Rutgers community," Berger wrote.
"In terms of the rooftop [...] it has been reopened without incident," Berger said.
Berger refers to comments made by Haile in the Oct. 31 issue of the Observer.
Haile explained that he shut down the Star Light Roof lounge because students allegedly used the unsupervised spot to smoke marijuana, get drunk and throw cigarettes onto pedestrians 15 stories below.
Haile also blamed two "false" fire alarms at the hotel this semester on students, even though housing officials said the hotel has no evidence proving a student pulled the prank.
Although campus police said they had no reports of students smoking marijuana at the hotel, student residents said they knew of other students smoking weed on the roof.
And police did report that on Oct. 13 an underage male student was taken to the emergency room by campus police after he had been drinking. But he had been drinking in his room, not on the roof, police said.
Students protested the roof's closure because it was one of the few places at the hotel where they could hang out.
The university has contracted with the hotel for the past three years to house the overflow of residents from Talbott Apartments and Woodward Hall.
The downtown hotel, located at 50 Park Place, just blocks from campus, houses about 140 students on six floors.
Miles Berger, president of Robert Treat Hotel Inc., wrote a letter to the Observer defending student residents against the criticism leveled by his own hotel manager, Alex Haile.
Last month, Haile called this semester's students "unruly" and "nothing but headache (sic)."
"Mr. Haile's remarks to your reporter were wrong and uncalled for, and on that note I apologize to the Rutgers community," Berger wrote.
"In terms of the rooftop [...] it has been reopened without incident," Berger said.
Berger refers to comments made by Haile in the Oct. 31 issue of the Observer.
Haile explained that he shut down the Star Light Roof lounge because students allegedly used the unsupervised spot to smoke marijuana, get drunk and throw cigarettes onto pedestrians 15 stories below.
Haile also blamed two "false" fire alarms at the hotel this semester on students, even though housing officials said the hotel has no evidence proving a student pulled the prank.
Although campus police said they had no reports of students smoking marijuana at the hotel, student residents said they knew of other students smoking weed on the roof.
And police did report that on Oct. 13 an underage male student was taken to the emergency room by campus police after he had been drinking. But he had been drinking in his room, not on the roof, police said.
Students protested the roof's closure because it was one of the few places at the hotel where they could hang out.
The university has contracted with the hotel for the past three years to house the overflow of residents from Talbott Apartments and Woodward Hall.
The downtown hotel, located at 50 Park Place, just blocks from campus, houses about 140 students on six floors.