Duff on Hospitality Law

Given the number of questions I've received recently from clients who've heard rumors about tip pooling becoming legal, I thought it time to update everyone. The short answer is (at least for now) that employers in Washington and Oregon may initiate mandatory tip pools under certain circumstances.

Mike Brunet is an associate working closely with Diana Shukis in our Labor, Employment & Immigration group. Both Mike and Diana do a lot of work with our hospitality clients in the areas of personnel and management issues - from creating and implementing comprehensive policies and procedures to providing key, timely advice during volatile workplace situations.  Today, Mike tackles the hot topic of employee social networking, from an employer’s perspective:

Tuesday morning saw the end of this year's conference held at Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, Washington. As in years past, the conference provided an excellent forum to reconnect with clients and friends in the industry (many of whom were just catching their breaths from the hectic summer season).

This year's Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association (ORLA) annual conference represents the culmination (and celebration) of months of hard work by the boards and members of both the former Oregon Lodging Association and the Oregon Restaurant Association to bring the two organizations together under a single common roof. While the number of restaurant members greatly exceed the number of lodging members, the newly combined organization has made a great effort to ensure that the interests of both constituencies are fairly represented. I applaud the efforts of Steve McCoid, Jeff Hampton and the other ORLA staff members and wish the newly combined organization continued success. Well done.

For those of you that didn't know, Sunday marked the end of a 10-week sabbatical that took my wife and me and our three small boys (ages 5, 7 and 9) first to Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons for nearly 3 weeks and then to Western Europe for the month of August. What a summer break - our boys had great stories to share with their classmates when it was time to describe how they has spent their summer vacation.

Time away from the office and practice taught me many things - among them, it takes a great deal of patience and perseverance to traveling with three little boys. The time away also reminded me of the value of travel and seeing and experiencing things (even your own local practices) through others' eyes. Our experience underscored the need to include foreign travel as the part of any education - whether formal, professional or otherwise. Travel opens our minds to other viewpoints and ideas that we might not otherwise experience.  

I am thrilled to be back to my practice and to re-connect with clients and friends. I'm also anxious to apply some of the new ideas and perspectives gained over the past few weeks. 

A huge thanks to my partners and colleagues at our office - especially those in our hospitality practice - Ruth Walters and Diana Shukis - who have once again reminded me that this practice has grown well beyond me. I look forward to touching base with all of you over the next few weeks and to sharing some of these my new ideas in future posts.     

Greg and I were fortunate enough to be asked to present at this year's Northwest Chapter of PCMA and MPIWSC's 9th Annual Meetings Industry Summit:  The New Norm at The Conference Center here in Seattle. For those of our excellent attendees who asked so many good questions both during and after the session and who requested an electronic copy of our slides, and for those who would no doubt have attended had they known, here you go.

As the post title suggests, we discussed trends in group sales/event contract negotiations attributable to the "new norm," primarily, the economy and its attendant changes (AIG effect, any one?) from both the venue and the group perspective. We took a look at contracts we had seen in the last year or two, group and meeting publications and did a brief and entirely unscientific survey of some of our clients to see what new things, if any, they were seeing.

We also talked about what has not changed, namely, the basic positions from which each party negotiates and what their objectives are, as well as some of the most important provisions in any group contract. 

Thanks again to Tom Norwalk of the SCVB for recommending us and PCMA and MPI for having us.

Missouri governor Jay Nixon signed HB 4211 into law on July 8, adding another point in the travel agent column in the contest with hoteliers, cities, counties and states over hotel/motel occupancy tax issues. The Missouri law codifies the current practice of all municipalities that assess occupancy taxes, namely, the hotels pay tax on the income they receive for their rooms and the travel agents (primarily on-line travel agents or OTAs) pay nothing. No occupancy tax, that is. Normal corporate income tax applies.

A pair of recently effected state laws makes clear that information security remains a significant issue that receives and will continue to receive considerable legislative and commercial attention. Hoteliers, restaurateurs and others in the hospitality industry use personally identifiable information (PII) of their guests and customers to improve services and create a personalized experience.

Greg and I attended the annual Hospitality Law Conference in Houston this February, which devoted an entire track to data privacy issues. It’s the definition of a hot topic, and important, so please take note!

On Thursday, May 20, the second installment of the quarterly seminar was held on issues facing clients in the hospitality and tourism industry at Seattle's Hotel 1000.  For those of you that were able to attend the presentation, I am sure you would agree that the panelists provided an informative and often entertaining presentation. 

Until recently, it had never occurred to me that a blog could be used as an effective means of sharing ideas and thoughts with clients, friends and industry colleagues on a variety of topics -- some as simple as a great food and beverage concept found while traveling in Wyoming (more on this later).  Now, having read -- and personally and professionally benefitted from -- dozens of blogs and other new forms of electronic communication, I am excited by the prospect of preparing my first blog entry.

What this blog becomes over the course of the next weeks, months or years is unknown.  What I hope it becomes is a community of hospitality industry colleagues sharing ideas and thoughts on hospitality related topics - some legal, some not.   Although the title of the blog would seem to indicate that I'm the driver behind this, we plan to feature entries from a number of our firm's Hospitality, Travel & Tourism team members as well as other industry consultants and professionals with whom we work regularly. 

With that, I say "welcome!"  I hope you find this blog useful, informative, practical and fun and that you participate often.  Participation by as many industry members as possible will be critical to the blog's success.

Finally, for those of you wondering who I am, I encourage each of you to take a look at our firm website, the description of our Hospitality, Travel & Tourism group and the bios of our hospitality team members. 

I look forward to touching base again soon.

-- Greg