Originally Posted by
Steve M
Depending on what state the hotel is in, the hotel is taking a big risk. Although not required to provide them by law, the innkeeper laws in many states protect the hotel from being responsible for items stolen from guest rooms ONLY if they provide free safe deposit boxes at the front desk. That's why even the lowest, least-amenity-providing roadside motels almost always provide free safe deposit boxes at the front desk: by doing so, they invoke the protection of state law against being responsible for in-room thefts.
When I was at that hotel in New Jersey, I thought that the hotel could have some liability since the usual and customary in-room posting of the Hotel's maximum daily rate, check out time, etc.
included an admonishment to secure valuables in a safe deposit box at the front desk, but there were no such boxes available - or so the hotel said!
After that stay, I wondered if the hotel might have directed their staff to discourage any guests from utilizing the safe deposit boxes for some strange reason. It just didn't seem right that a newly re-branded and remodeled Crowne Plaza near NYC wouldn't have safe deposit boxes for use by their guests.
Furthermore, I understand that the hotel changed hands and re-opened as a Crowne Plaza several months prior to my visit, so it wasn't like I was there the first week they opened and the safe deposit boxes weren't installed yet.