Hotel vows to revise policy on dealing with people with no pants on in the lobby

Officials from the Doubletree Hotel on Washington Street told the Boston Licensing Board yesterday they are retraining staff following a March 3 incident in which a woman naked from the waist down sitting on a lobby couch around 2:30 a.m. was allowed to be hustled into a car outside without a call to police.

Hotel officials said this was not the first time they've had to deal with pantsless people in the lobby, which they said is to be expected at a hotel in the middle of a big city, that in the past they have tried to deal with the situation on their own and that police probably wouldn't respond, anyway. One Boston police officer and two detectives who did investigate this case attended yesterday's hearing.

"If that person has no clothes on, they ask them to leave," a hotel attorney told the board.

Licensing Board Chairman Daniel Pokaski, however, said the hotel wouldn't even be before his board for possible sanctions if only the security guard who found the woman, huddled with two other women, had called 911. "You got somebody naked in your hotel and you didn't call the police. I'm just dumbfounded by that. ... You can't allow this to happen again. It's bad for business, it's bad for their health, it's bad for your health."

The hotel security guard who found the woman told the board she appeared to be OK, aside from the fact she had no clothes south of her waist and that he figured she was drunk, wanted to avoid further embarrassment and that the other two women seemed to have things under control.

Police say the woman eventually wound up at the Boston Medical Center emergency room - even though the hotel is on the same block as Tufts Medical Center - but refused or was unable to talk to officers. One of the women she was with turned out to be a good Samaritan who agreed to get her to the hospital.

One officer said she had dried blood on her lips at the hospital and appeared to be either intoxicated or on drugs. She checked herself out later that morning and cannot now be found. Detectives told the board the man who rented the room in which she was supposedly staying has refused to cooperate with their investigation.