Hotel Lawyer with a name change. JMBM's Global Hospitality Group® is part of a vibrant law firm. Today, that firm announced that it is changing the firm name, but we will still be known as "JMBM." Here's the story.

Less than two weeks after the quarter's end, Atlas Hospitality has released its California Distressed Hotels Survey (2nd Quarter 2010).

Here is our executive summary of that report, our view of its national implications and what we think it means for owners, lenders and investors.

Today, the JW Marriott Los Angeles, we got an update on the state of the lodging industry from two of my favorite industry leaders: Mark Woodworth, President of Hospitality Research, and Mark Lomanno, President of Smith Travel Research.

There is some good news, and some bad news, although both reports were optimistic on the direction we are heading. Here is my take on some highlights with some pertinent slides.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is taking historic action. With a huge increase in funding and staffing, the DOL is specifically targeting audits and enforcement actions for every hotel, motel, and resort in the U.S. The program will search for violations of overtime rules, minimum wage, and classification of exempt and non-exempt positions. In addition, one of the primary focal points of these audits will be employers with workers holding H-2B visas.

Hotel labor lawyer Marta Fernandez and hotel lawyer, Jim Abrams, both senior members of the JMBM Global Hospitality Group®, say, " We expect that the DOL compliance audits will cover all of the laws administered by the DOL and WHD including H-2B labor certification wage requirements and other federal laws such as minimum wage, overtime, and family and medical leave."

In today's Alert, they also suggest "4 Things that you should do now -- Before it is too late."

Hotel Lawyers | Authors of www.HotelLawBlog.com

30 June 2010

Hotel ADA defense lawyer looking beyond the latest update on ADA "sweeps" by the Department of Justice coming to Portland, San Francisco and elsewhere.

As we wrote earlier, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing its program of in-depth investigations of hotels to determine whether they comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. The investigations are called "sweeps" because they target all hotels in a given geographic area. There is also some basis to believe that the sweeps may now also focus on certain industries such as hotels, restaurants and other places of public accommodation.

There is a lot of valuable information on Hotel Law Blog about ADA Defense matters. Just go to the top of the Blog home page, click the "Hotel Law Topics" tab, and then select the first item named "ADA Defense." You will see all the articles on this subject organized in reverse chronological order.

Although the sweeps sound an immediate call to action in the targeted areas and industries, there are broader implications that we will talk about today.

Hotel ADA defense lawyer with the latest update on ADA "sweeps" by the Department of Justice coming to Portland, San Francisco and elsewhere.

We discussed in earlier blogs that the DOJ is conducting in-depth investigations of hotels to determine whether they comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. The investigations are called "sweeps" because they typically target all hotels in a given geographic area. One of the first notable ADA sweeps hit all the hotels in Manhattan's Theater District, where we actively assisted clients.

A few days ago, we were contacted by a hotel in Portland, Oregon that had just received an investigative survey from DOJ. It appears that a similar sweep operation is being initiated there. We have also received information indicating that an ADA sweep might hit San Francisco in the near future.

Here is what you need to know about the sweeps, how they can affect you, and what you need to do.

To see the rich library of materials on Hotel Management Agreements, you can click here: Hotel Management Agreements ( http://hotellaw.jmbm.com/management_and_franchise_agree/). Or you can just do a GOOGLE search on "hotel management agreements" and you will see it near the top of the search.

In the last article, we talked about Hotel Management Agreement performance standards and why they matter. Today, we will analyze a typical Operator form of performance standard, and later we will look at a model better suited to an Owner's interests.

That makes this seem like a good time to remind everyone about the wealth of information on this subject at www.HotelLawBlog.com, particularly at Hotel Management Agreements.

This article will focus on 8 pitfalls of hotel lending - the special traps that hotel lending presents beyond all the typical considerations of traditional real estate lending - and how to avoid them. These are hotel-specific structuring, documentation and legal issues that can really snare the unwary lender.

Hotel lending is different from any other kind of real estate lending . . . because hotels are different from every other class of real estate. These differences are key to understanding why hotel lending is different than lending on any other class of real estate.

Having recently assisted 3 major lenders design their hotel lending programs and hotel loan documentation, the hotel lawyers in JMBM's Global Hospitality Group® believe that now is the best time for hotel lending in 20 years. My partner, Guy Maisnik, and I thought you might like to know why we believe this is true. So, here's why.

Finally, there is a promising new development in California for beleaguered owners of hotels, restaurants and other commercial real estate. An ADA plaintiff and his lawyer were recently sanctioned for lack of merit and failure to perform due diligence prior to filing a lawsuit.

This has been a very interesting week. JMBM's Global Hospitality Group® has a lot of work in New York and throughout the East Coast, so I have had more than a dozen business meetings this past week with industry leaders at major banks, Wall Street firms and institutional owners of hotel properties.Then the 32nd NYU Hotel Conference kicked off tonight with the Grand Reception at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square.

Boy, has the tide turned! Here is my take on the situation.

Hotel lawyers with insights on how some development deals are still getting done: Public-Private Financing for Hotel Developments

To view presentations made by the experts, see the easy download links.

Hotel lawyer Catherine Holmes, one of our public-private hotel financing specialists in JMBM's Global Hospitality Group® has represented cities and other governmental entities in several public-private partnership hotel development and convention center hotel deals, such as the recent transactions with the City of Dallas and the Redevelopment Agency of the City of Riverside.

Cathy recently moderated a panel on the topic of public-private financing for hotel development in Los Angeles with some of the top experts in the field. Here is a summary of what they told us.